
Class. 
Book. 



Xsao. 



"D 



T.'SA 



CopyTightN". 



C0I%1^1CHT DEPOSm 



¥ 



iFrancis ^arkman's Smorfes, 



NEW LIBRARY EDITION. 
Vol. xn. 



I 



FRANCIS PARKMAN'S WORKS. 

Wcbi Eibvarg ISliition. 

Pioneers of France in the Kew World I vol. 

The Jesuits in North America I vol. 

La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West . . I vol. 

The Old Regfime in Canada I vol. 

Count Frontenac and Kew France under Louis XIV. I vol. 

A Half Century of Conflict 2 vols. 

Montcalm and Wolfe 2 vols. 

The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after 

the Conquest of Canada 2 vols. 

The Oregon Trail I vol. 



' ' Half sliding, half plunging, down went the little 
mare." 

Drawn by Frederic Remington. 

The Oregon Trail, Froniispiece. 



THE 



OREGON TRAIL: 



SKETCHES 



OF 



PRAIRIE AND ROCKY-MOUNTAIN LIFE. 



BY 

FRANCIS PARKMAN. 



BOSTON: 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPA^. 

1899. 



l_ibj*ry of Congress 

Im Copies Received 



S£€ON[> COf y. 

Dellvwetl to 

ORDER DIVISION. 



I-WO COPIES RECEIVEO. 

L/bracy of C0Bgeati|| 
Offlffd of tli« 

APR 1 6 1900 

KofflsUr of Copyrl^ht^ 



T3'2. 'I A 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the j-ear 1872, by 

Francis Pakkman, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

CopyrhjJd, 1S9S, 1S97, 180S, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 



SSnibcrsitg Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Camukidge, U.S.A. 



TO 
THE COMRADE OF A SUMMER 

AND 

THE FRIEKD OF A LIFETIME, 
QUINCY ADAMS SHAW. 



The " Oregon Trail" is the title undei ■which this 
book first appeared. It was afterwards changed by 
the publisher, and is now restored to the form in which 
it originally stood in the Knickerbocker Magazine^ 
As the early editions were printed in my absence, I 
did not correct the proofs, — a process doubly neces- 
sary, since the book was written from dictation. The 
necessary corrections have been made in the present 
edition. 



PREFACE 

TO THE EDITION OF 1892. 



In the preface to the fourth edition of this 
book, printed in 1872, I spoke of the changes 
that had ah^eady come over the Far West. Since 
that time change has grown to metamorpho- 
sis. For Indian teepees, with their trophies of 
bow, lance, shield, and dangling scalp-locks, we 
have towns and cities, resorts of health and 
pleasure seekers, with an agreeable society, Paris 
fashions, the magazines, the latest poem, and the 
last new novel. The sons of civilization, drawn 
by the fascinations of a fresher and bolder life, 
thronged to the western wilds in multitudes 
which blighted the charm that had lured them. 

The buffalo is gone, and of all his millions 
nothing is left but bones. Tame cattle and 
fences of barbed wire have supplanted his vast 
herds and boundless grazing grounds. Those 
discordant serenaders, the wolves that howled at 



X PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1892. 

evening about the traveller's camp-fire, have suc- 
cumbed to arsenic and hushed their savage music. 
The wild Indian is turned into an ugly caricature 
of his conqueror; and that which made him 
romantic, terrible, and hateful, is in large meas- 
ure scourged out of him. The slow cavalcade of 
horsemen armed to the teeth has disappeared 
before parlor cars and the effeminate comforts 
of modern travel. 

The rattlesnakes have grown bashful and re- 
tiring. The mountain lion shrinks from the face 
of man, and even grim ^' Old Ephraim," ^ the 
grizzly bear, seeks the seclusion of his dens and 
caverns. It is said that he is no longer his 
former self, having found, by an intelligence not 
hitherto set to his credit, that his ferocious 
strength is no match for a repeating rifle ; with 
which discovery he is reported to have grown 
diffident, and abated the truculence of his more 
prosperous days. One may be permitted to 
doubt if the bloodthirsty old savage has really 
experienced a change of heart ; and before invit- 
ing him to single combat, the ambitious tender- 
foot, though the proud possessor of a Winchester 
with sixteen cartridges in the magazine, would 

1 Alias "Old Caleb" and "Old Enoch." 



PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1892. Xl 

do well to consider not only the quality of liis 
weapon, but also that of his own nerves. 

He who feared neither bear, Indian, nor devil, 
the all-daring and all-end iiring trapper, belongs 
to the past, or lives only in a few gray-bearded 
survivals. In his stead we have the cowboy, 
and even his star begins to wane. 

The Wild West is tamed, and its savage charms 
have withered. If this book can help to keep 
their memory alive, it will have done its part. 
It has found a powerful helper in the pencil of 
Mr. Remington, whose pictures are as full of 
truth as of spirit, for they are the work of one 
who knew the prairies and the mountains before 
irresistible commonplace had subdued them. 

Boston, 16 September, 1892. 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 



The following sketches first appeared in 1847. 
A summer's adventures of two youths just out 
of college might well enough be allowed to fall 
into oblivion, were it not that a certain interest 
will always attach to the record of that which 
has passed away never to return. This book is 
the reflection of forms and conditions of life 
which have ceased, in great measure, to exist. 
It mirrors the image of an irrevocable past. 

I remember that, as we rode by the foot of 
Pike's Peak, when for a fortnight we met no 
face of man, my companion remarked, in a tone 
anything but complacent, that a time would 
come when those plains would be a grazing 
country, the buffalo give place to tame cattle, 
farmhouses be scattered along the water-courses, 
and wolves, bears, and Indians be numbered 
among the things that were. We condoled with 
each other on so melancholy a prospect, but we 
little thouo-ht what the future had m store. We 



XIV PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION". 

knew that there was more or less gold m the 
seams of those untrodden mountams; but we 
did not foresee that it would build cities in the 
waste and plant hotels and gambling-houses 
among the haunts of the grizzly bear. We knew 
that a few fanatical outcasts were groping their 
way across the plains to seek an asylum from 
Gentile persecution ; but we did not imagine that 
the polygamous hordes of Mormon would rear a 
swarming Jerusalem in the bosom of solitude 
itself. We knew that, more and more, year 
after year, the trains of emigrant wagons would 
creep in slow procession towards barbarous Ore- 
gon or wild and distant California ; but we did 
not dream how Commerce and Gold would breed 
nations along the Pacific, the disenchanting 
screech of the locomotive break the spell of 
weird mysterious mountains, woman's rights 
invade the fastnesses of the Arapahoes, and de- 
spairing savagery, assailed in front and rear, 
vail its scalp-locks and feathers before triumph- 
ant commonplace. We were no prophets to 
foresee all this ; and, had we foreseen it, per- 
haps some perverse regrets might have tempered 
the ardor of our rejoicing. 

The wild cavalcade that defiled with me down 
the gorges of the Black Hills, with its paint and 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. xv 

war-plumes, fluttering trophies and savage em- 
broidery, bows, arrows, lances, and shields, Avill 
never be seen again. Those who formed it have 
found bloody graves, or a ghastlier burial in the 
maws of wolves. The Indian of to-day, armed 
with a revolver and crowned with an old hat ; 
cased, possibly, in trousers or muffled in a taw- 
dry shirt, — is an Indian still, but an Indian 
shorn of the picturesqueness which was his most 
conspicuous merit. 

The mountain trapper is no more, and the 
grim romance of his wild, hard life is a memory 
of the past. 

As regards the motives which sent us to the 
mountains, our liking for them would have suf- 
ficed ; but, in my case, another incentive was 
added. I went in great measure as a student, 
to prepare for a literary undertaking of which 
the plan was already formed, but which, from 
the force of inexorable circumstances, is still but 
half accomplished. It was this that prompted 
some proceedings on my part, which, without a 
fixed purpose in view, might be charged with 
youthful rashness. My business was observa- 
tion, and I was willing to pay dearly for the 
opportunity of exercising it. 

Two or three years ago, I made a visit to our 



xvi PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 

guide, the brave and true-hearted Henry Chatil- 
Ion, at the town of Carondelet, near St. Louis. 
It was more than twenty years since we had 
met. Time hung heavy on his hands, as usual 
with old mountain-men married and established ; 
his hair was touched with gray, and his face and 
figure showed tokens of early hardship ; but the 
manly simplicity of his character was unchanged. 
He told me that the Indians with whom I had 
been domesticated, a band of the hated Sioux, 
had nearly all been killed in fights with the 
white men. 

The faithful Deslauriers is, I believe, still liv- 
ing on the frontier of Missouri. The hunter 
Raymond perished in the snow during Fremont's 
disastrous passage of the mountains m the win- 
ter of 1848. 

B08TON, March 30, 1872. 



co:n^te:n^ts. 



Chapter Page 

I. The Frontier 3 

II. Breaking the Ice ........ 14 

III. Fort Leavenworth 28 

IV. "Jumping Off" 33 

V. The "Big Blue" 47 

VI. The Platte and the Desert .... 64 

VII. The Buffalo 81 

VIIL Taking French Leave 100 

IX. Scenes at Fort Laramie 120 

X, The War-parties 139 

XI. Scenes at the Camp 169 

XII. Ill-luck 193 

XIII. Hunting Indians 203 

XIV. The Ogillallah Village 233 

XV. The Hunting Camp 261 

XVI. The Trappers 292 

XVII. The Black Hills 305 

XVIII. A Mountain Hunt 310 

XIX. Passage of the IMountains 326 

XX. The Lonely Journey 346 



xviii CONTENTS. 

CuAi-TER Page 

XXI. The Pueblo and Bent's Fokt .... 371 

XXII. Tete Rouge, the Volunteer 381 

XXIII. Indian Alakms 388 

XXIV. The Chase 402 

XXV. The Buffalo Camp 414 

XXVI. Down the Arkansas , . 434 

XXVII. The Settlements 456 

INDEX 469 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FRONTIER. 

Last spring, 1846, was a busy season in the city 
of St. Louis. Not only were emigrants from every 
part of the country preparing for the journey to 
Oregon and California, but an unusual number of 
traders were making ready their wagons and outfits 
for Santa F^. The hotels were crowded, and the 
gunsmiths and saddlers were kept constantly at work 
in providing arms and equipments for the different 
parties of travellers. Steamboats were leaving the 
levee and passing up the Missouri, crowded with 
passengers on their way to the frontier. 

In one of these, the "Radnor," since snagged and 
lost, my friend and relative, Quincy Adams Shaw, 
and myself, left St. Louis on the twenty-eighth of 
April, on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the 
Rocky Mountains. The boat was loaded until the 
water broke alternately over her guards. Her upper- 
deck was covered with large wagons of a peculiar 
form, for the Santa F^ trade, and her hold was 



4 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

crammed with goods for the same destination. There 
were also the equipments and provisions of a party of 
Oregon emigrants, a band of mules and horses, piles 
of saddles and harness, and a multitude of nonde- 
script articles, indispensable on the prairies. Almost 
hidden in this medley was a small French cart, 
of the sort very appropriately called a "mule-killer," 
beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a tent, 
together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and 
barrels. The whole equipage was far from prepos- 
sessing in its appearance ; yet, such as it was, it was 
destined to a long and arduous journey on which the 
persevering reader will accompany it. 

The passengers on board the " Radnor " corre- 
sponded with her freight. In her cabin were Santa 
F^ traders, gamblers, speculators, and adventurers of 
various descriptions, and her steerage was crowded 
with Oregon emigrants, "mountain men," negroes, 
and a party of Kanzas Indians, who had been on a 
visit to St. Louis. 

Thus laden, the boat struggled upward for seven 
or eight days against the rapid current of the 
Missouri, grating upon snags, and hanging for two 
or three hours at a time upon sand-bars. We entered 
the mouth of the Missouri in a drizzling rain, but the 
weather soon became clear, and showed distinctly 
the broad and turbid river, with its eddies, its sand- 
bars, its ragged islands and forest-covered shores. 
The Missouri is constantly changing its course, wear- 
ing ^way its banks on one side, while it forms new 



THE FRONTIER, 5 

ones on the other. Its channel is continually shift- 
ing. Islands are formed, and then washed away, 
and while the old forests on one side are undermined 
and swept off, a young growth springs up from the 
new soil upon the other. With all these changes, 
the water is so charged with mud and sand that, in 
spring, it is perfectly opaque, and in a few minutes 
deposits a sediment an inch thick in the bottom of a 
tumbler. The river was now high; but when we 
descended in the autumn it was fallen very low, and 
all the secrets of its treacherous shallows were ex- 
posed to view. It was frightful to see the dead and 
broken trees, thick-set as a military abattis, firmly 
imbedded in the sand, and all pointing down stream, 
ready to impale any unhappy steamboat that at high 
water should pass over them. 

In five or six days we began to see signs of the 
great western movement that was taking place. 
Parties of emigrants, with their tents and wagons, 
were encamped on open spots near the bank, on their 
way to the common rendezvous at Independence. 
On a rainy day, near sunset, we reached the landing 
of this place, which is some miles from the river, on 
the extreme frontier of Missouri. The scene was 
characteristic, for here were represented at one view 
the most remarkable features of this wild and enter- 
prising region. On the muddy shore stood some 
thirty or forty dark slavish-looking Spaniards, gazing 
stupidly out from beneath their broad hats. The}^ 
were attached to one of the Santa Fd companies. 



6 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

wliose wagons were crowded together on the banks 
above. In the midst of these, crouching over a 
smouldering fire, was a group of Indians, belonging 
to a remote Mexican tribe. One or two French 
hunters from the mountains, with their long hair and 
buckskin dresses, were looking at the boat; and 
seated on a log close at hand were three men, with 
rifles lying across their knees. The foremost of 
these, a tall, strong figure, with a clear blue eye and 
an open, intelligent face, might very well represent 
that race of restless and intrepid pioneers whose axes 
and rifles have opened a path from the Alleghanies 
to the western prairies. He was on his way to 
Oregon, probably a more congenial field to him than 
any that now remained on this side of the great 
plains. 

Early on the next morning we reached Kanzas, 
about five hundred miles from the mouth of the 
Missouri. Here we landed, and leaving our equip- 
ments in charge of Colonel Chick, whose log-house 
was the substitute for a tavern, Ave set out in a wagon 
for Westport, where we hoped to procure mules and 
horses for the journey. 

It was a remarkably fresh and beautiful May morn- 
ing. The woods, through which the miserable road 
conducted us, were lighted by the bright sunshine 
and enlivened by a multitude of birds. We overtook 
on the way our late fellow-travellers, the Kanzas 
Indians, who, adorned with all their finery, were 
proceeding homeward at a round pace ; and whatever 



THE FRONTIER. 7 

they might have seemed on board the boat, they made 
a very striking and picturesque feature in the forest 
landscape. 

Westport was full of Indians, whose little shaggy 
ponies were tied by dozens along the houses and 
fences. Sacs and Foxes, with shaved heads and 
painted faces, Shawanoes and Delawares, fluttering 
in calico frocks and turbans, Wyandots dressed like 
white men, and a few wretched Kanzas wrapped in 
old blankets, were strolling about the streets, or 
lounging in and out of the shops and houses. 

As I stood at the door of the tavern, I saw a 
remarkable-looking personage coming up the street. 
He had a ruddy face, garnished with the stumps of a 
bristly red beard and moustache ; on one side of his 
head was a round cap with a knob at the top, such 
as Scottish laborers sometimes wear; his coat was of 
a nondescript form, and made of a gray Scotch plaid, 
with the fringes hanging all about it; he wore trousers 
of coarse homespun, and hob-nailed shoes; and to 
complete his equipment, a little black pipe was stuck 
in one corner of his mouth. In this curious attire, I 

recognized Captain C , of the British army, who, 

with his brother, and Mr. R , an English gentle- 
man, was bound on a hunting expedition across the 
continent. I had seen the captain and his compan- 
ions at St. Louis. They had now been for some time 
at Westport, making preparations for their departure, 
and waiting for a reinforcement, since they were too 
few in number to attempt it alone. They might, it 



8 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

is true, have joined some of the parties of emigrants 
who were on the point of setting out for Oregon and 
California ; but they professed great disinclination to 
have any connection with the "Kentucky fellows." 

The captain now urged it upon us that we should 
join forces and proceed to the mountains in company. 
Feeling no greater partiality for the society of the 
emigrants than they did, we thought the arrangement 
a good one, and consented to it. Our future fellow- 
travellers had installed themselves in a little log- 
house, where we found them surrounded by saddles, 
harness, guns, pistols, telescopes, knives, and, in 
short, their complete appointments for the prairie. 

R , who had a taste for natural history, sat at 

a table stuffing a woodpecker; the brother of the 
captain, who was an Irishman, was splicing a trail- 
rope on the floor. The captain pointed out, with 
much complacency, the different articles of their 
outfit. "You see," said he, "that we are all old 
travellers. I am convinced that no party ever went 
upon the prairie better provided." The hunter whom 
they had employed, a surly-looking Canadian, named 
Sorel, and their muleteer, an American ruffian from 
St. Louis, were lounging about the building. In a 
little loof stable close at hand were their horses and 
mules, selected with excellent judgment by the 
captain. 

We left them to complete their arrangements, while 
we pushed our own to all convenient speed. The 
emigrants, for whom our friends professed such con- 



THE FROXTIER. 9 

tempt, were encamiDed on the prairie about eight or 
ten miles distant, to the number of a tliousand or 
more, and new parties were constantly passing out 
from Independence to join them. They were in 
great confusion, holding meetings, passing resolu- 
tions, and drawing up regulations, but unable to 
unite in the choice of leaders to conduct them across 
the prairie. Being at leisure one day, I rode over 
to Independence. The town was crowded. A mul- 
titude of shops had sprung up to furnish the emi- 
grants and Santa Fe traders with necessaries for 
their journey ; and there was an incessant hammering 
and banging from a dozen blacksmiths' sheds, where 
the heavy wagons were being repaired, and the horses 
and oxen shod. The streets were thronged with 
men, horses, and mules. While I was in the town, a 
train of emigrant wagons from Illinois passed through, 
to join the camp on the prairie, and stopped in the 
principal street. A multitude of healthy children's 
faces were peeping out from under the covers of the 
wagons. Here and there a buxom damsel was seated 
on horseback, holding over her sunburnt face an old 
umbrella or a parasol, once gaudy enough, but now 
miserably faded. The men, very sober-looking coun- 
trymen, stood about their oxen; and as I passed I 
noticed three old fellows, who, with their long whips 
in their hands, were zealously discussing the doctrine 
of regeneration. The emigrants, however, are not 
all of this stamp. Among them are some of the 
vilest outcasts in the country. I have often per- 



10 THE orp:gon trail. 

plexed myself to divine the various motives that give 
impulse to this migration; but whatever they may 
be, whether an insane hope of a better condition in 
life, or a desire of shaking off restraints of law and 
society, or mere restlessness, certain it is, that mul- 
titudes bitterly repent the journey, and, after they 
have reached the land of promise, are happy enough 
to escape from it. 

In the course of seven or eight days we had brought 
our preparations nearly to a close. Meanwhile our 
friends had completed theirs, and, becoming tired of 
Westport, they told us that they would set out in 
advance, and wait at the crossing of the Kanzas till 

we should come up. Accordingly R and the 

muleteer went forward with the wagon and tent, 
while the captain and his brother, together with 
Sorel, and a trapper named Boisverd, who had joined 
them, followed with the band of horses. The com- 
mencement of the journey was ominous, for the 
captain was scarcely a mile from Westport, riding 
along in state fit the head of his party, leading his 
intended buffalo horse by a rope, when a tremendous 
thunder-storm came on and drenched them all to the 
skin. They hurried on to reach the place, about 

seven miles off, where R was to have had the 

camp in readiness to receive them. But this prudent 
person, when he saw the storm approaching, had 
selected a sheltered glade in the woods where he 
pitched his tent, and was sipping a comfortable cup 
of coffee while the captain galloped for miles beyond 



THE FRONTIER. 11 

through the rain to look for him. At length the 
storm cleared away, and the sharp-eyed trapper suc- 
ceeded in discovering his tent; R had by this 

time finished his coffee, and was seated on a buffalo- 
robe smoking his pipe. The captain was one of the 
most easy-tempered men in existence, so he bore his 
ill-luck with great composure, shared the dregs of 
the coffee with his brother, and lay down to sleep in 
his wet clothes. 

We ourselves had our share of the deluge. We 
were leading a pair of mules to Kanzas when the 
storm broke. Such sharp and incessant flashes of 
lightning, such stunning and continuous thunder, I 
had never known before. The woods were completely 
obscured by the diagonal sheets of rain that fell with 
a heavy roar, and rose in spray from the ground, and 
the streams swelled so rapidly that we could hardly 
ford them. At length, looming through the rain, we 
saw the log-house of Colonel Chick, who received us 
with his usual bland hospitality; while his wife, 
who, though a little soured and stiffened by a long 
course of camp-meetings, was not behind him in 
goodwill, supplied us with the means of bettering our 
drenched and bedraggled condition. The storm clear- 
ing away at about sunset opened a noble prospect 
from the porch of the colonel's house, which stands 
upon a high hill. The sun streamed from the break- 
ing clouds upon the swift and angiy Missouri, and 
on the vast expanse of forest that stretched from its 
banks back to the distant bluffs. 



12 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Returning on the next day to Westport, we received 
a message from the captain, who had ridden back to 
deliver it in person, but finding that we were in 
Kanzas, had intrusted it with an acquaintance of his 
named Vogel, who kept a small grocery and liquor 
shop. Whiskey, by the way, circulates more freely in 
Westport than is altogether safe in a place where 
every man carries a loaded pistol in his pocket. As 
we passed this establishment we saw Vogel's broad 
German face thrust from his door. He said he had 
something to tell us, and invited us to take a dram. 
Neither his liquor nor his message was very pala- 
table. The captain had returned to give us notice 

that R , who assumed the direction of his party, 

had determined upon another route from that agreed 
upon between us; and instead of taking the course 
of the traders, had resolved to pass northward by 
Fort Leavenworth, and follow the path marked out 
by the dragoons in their expedition of last summer. 
To adopt such a plan without consulting us, we 
looked upon as a high-handed proceeding; but sup- 
pressing our dissatisfaction as well as we could, we 
made up our minds to join them at Fort Leaven- 
worth, where they were to wait for us. 

Accordingly, our preparation being now complete, 
we attempted one fine morning to begin our journey. 
The first step was an unfortunate one. No sooner 
were our animals put in harness than the shaft-mule 
reared and plunged, burst ropes and straps, and 
nearly flung the cart into the Missouri. Finding 



THE FRONTIER. 13 

her wholly uncontrollable, we exchanged her for 
another, with which we were furnished by our friend 
Mr. Boone, of Westport, a grandson of Daniel Boone, 
the pioneer. This foretaste of prairie experience was 
very soon followed by another. Westport was scarcely 
out of sight when we encountered a deep muddy 
gully, of a species that afterward became but too 
familiar to us, and here for the space of an hour or 
more the cart stuck fast. 



CHAPTER II. 

BREAKING THE ICE. 

Emerging from the mud-holes of Westport, we 
pursued our way for some time along the narrow 
track, in the checkered sunshine and shadow of the 
woods, till at length, issuing into the broad light, 
we left behind us the farthest outskirts of the great 
forest, that once spread from the western plains to 
the shore of the Atlantic. Looking over an inter- 
vening belt of bushes, we saw the green, ocean-like 
expanse of prairie, stretching swell beyond swell to 
the horizon. 

It was a mild, calm spring day; a day when one 
is more disposed to musing and revery than to action, 
and the softest part of his nature is apt to gain the 
upper hand. I rode in advance of the party, as we 
passed through the bushes, and, as a nook of green 
grass offered a strong temptation, I dismounted and 
lay down there. All the trees and saplings were in 
flower, or budding into fresh leaf; the red clusters of 
the maple-blossoms and the rich flowers of the Indian 
apple were there in profusion; and I was half in- 
clined to regret leaving behind the land of gardens for 
the rude and stern scenes of the prairie and the 
mountains. 



BREAKING THE ICE. 15 

Meanwhile the party came in sight out of the 
bushes. Foremost rode Henry Chatillon, our guide 
and hunter, a fine athletic figure, mounted on a 
hardy gray Wyandot pony. He wore a white blanket- 
coat, a broad hat of felt, moccasons, and trousers of 
deer-skin, ornamented along the seams with rows of 
long fringes. His knife was stuck in his belt; his 
bullet-pouch and powder-horn hung at his side, and 
his rifle lay before him, resting against the high 
pommel of his saddle, which, like all his equipments, 
had seen hard service, and was much the worse for 
wear. Shaw followed close, mounted on a little 
sorrel horse, and leading a larger animal by a rope. 
His outfit, which resembled mine, had been provided 
with a view to use rather than ornament. It con- 
sisted of a plain, black Spanish saddle, with holsters 
of heavy pistols, a blanket rolled up behind, and the 
trail-rope attached to his horse's neck hanging coiled 
in front. He carried a double-barrelled smooth- 
bore, while I had a rifle of some fifteen pounds' 
weight. At that time our attire, though far from 
elegant, bore some marks of civilization, and offered 
a very favorable contrast to the inimitable shabbiness 
of our appearance on the return journey. A red 
flannel shirt, belted around the waist like a frock, 
then constituted our upper garment; moccasons had 
supplanted our failing boots; and the remaining 
essential portion of our attire consisted of an extra- 
ordinary article, manufactured by a squaw out of 
smoked buckskin. Our muleteer, Deslauriers, brought 



16 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

up the rear with his cart, wading ankle-deep in the 
mud, alternately puffing at his pipe, and ejaculating 
in his prairie patois, '"'' Sacre enfant de garce /" as one 
of the mules would seem to recoil before some abyss 
of unusual profundity. The cart was of the kind 
that one may see by scores around the market-place 
at Quebec, and had a white covering to protect the 
articles within. These were our provisions and a 
tent, with ammunition, blankets, and presents for 
the Indians. 

We were in all four men with eight animals ; for 
besides the spare horses led by Shaw and myself, an 
additional mule was driven along with us as a reserve 
in case of accident. 

After this summing up of our forces, it may not 
be amiss to glance at the characters of the two men 
who accompanied us. 

Deslauriers was a Canadian, with all the character- 
istics of the true Jean Baptiste. Neither fatigue, 
exposure, nor hard labor could ever impair his cheer- 
fulness and gayety, or his politeness to his bourgeois ; 
and when night came, he would sit down by the fire, 
smoke his pipe, and tell stories with the utmost con- 
tentment. The prairie was his element. Henry 
Chatillon was of a different stamp. When we were 
at St. Louis, several gentlemen of the Fur Company 
had kindly offered to procure for us a hunter and 
guide suited for our purposes, and on coming one 
afternoon to the office, we found there a tall and 
exceedingly well-dressed man, with a face so open 



BREAKING THE ICE. 17 

and frank that it attracted our notice at once. We 
were surprised at being told that it was he who 
wished to guide us to the mountains. He was born 
in a little French town near St. Louis, and from the 
age of fifteen years had been constantly in the neigh- 
borhood of the Rocky Mountains, emploj^ed for the 
most part by the company, to supply their forts with 
buffalo meat. As a hunter, he had but one rival in 
the whole region, a man named Simoneau, with 
whom, to the honor of both of them, he was on terms 
of the closest friendship. He had arrived at St. 
Louis the day before, from the mountains, where he 
had been for four years ; and he now asked only to 
go and spend a day with his mother, before setting 
out on another expedition. His age was about thirty; 
he was six feet high, and very powerfully and grace- 
fully moulded. The prairies had been his school; 
he could neither read nor write, but he had a natural 
refinement and delicacy of mind, such as is rare even 
in women. His manly face was a mirror of upright- 
ness, simplicity, and kindness of heart; he had, 
moreover, a keen perception of character, and a tact 
that would preserve him from flagrant error in any 
society. Henry had not the restless energy of an 
Anglo-American. He was content to take things as 
he found them; and his chief fault arose from an 
excess of easy generosity, not conducive to thriving 
in the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of 
him, that whatever he might choose to do with what 
belonged to himself, the property of others was always 



18 THE OREGOX TRAIL. 

safe in his hands. His bravery was as much cele- 
brated in the mountains as his skill in hunting; but 
it is characteristic of him that in a country where 
the rifle is the chief arbiter between man and man, 
he was very seldom involved in quarrels. Once or 
twice, indeed, his quiet good-nature had been mis- 
taken and presumed upon, but the consequences of 
the error were such that no one was ever known to 
repeat it. No better evidence of the intrepidity of 
his temper could be asked, than the common report 
that he had killed more than thirty grizzly bears. 
He was a proof of what unaided nature will some- 
times do. I have never, in the city or in the wilder- 
ness, met a better man than my true-hearted friend, 
Henry Chatillon. 

We were soon free of the woods and bushes, and 
fairly upon the broad prairie. Now and then a 
Shawanoe passed us, riding his little shaggy pony at 
a "lope;" his calico shirt, his gaudy sash, and the 
gay handkerchief bound around his snaky hair, flut- 
tering in the wind. At noon we stopped to rest not 
far from a little creek, replete with frogs and young 
turtles. There had been an Indian encampment at 
the place, and the framework of the lodges still 
remained, enabling us very easily to gain a shelter 
from the sun, by merely spreading one or two blankets 
over them. Thus shaded, we sat upon our saddles, 
and Shaw for the first time lighted his favorite 
Indian pipe; while Deslauriers was squatted over a 
hot bed of coals, shading his eyes with one hand, 



BREAKING THE ICE. 19 

and holding a little stick in the other, with which he 
regulated the hissing contents of the frying-pan. 
The horses were turned to feed among the scattered 
bushes of a low oozy meadow. A drowsy spring- 
lilce sultriness pervaded the air, and the voices of 
ten thousand young frogs and insects, just awakened 
into life, rose in varied chorus from the creek and 
the meadows. 

Scarcely were we seated when a visitor approached. 
This was an old Kanzas Indian ; a man of distinction, 
if one might judge from his dress. His head was 
shaved and painted red, and from the tuft of hair 
remaining on the crown dangled several eagle's 
feathers, and the tails of two or three rattlesnakes. 
His cheeks, too, were daubed with vermilion ; his ears 
were adorned with green glass pendants; a collar 
of grizzly bears' claws surrounded his neck, and 
several large necklaces of wampum hung on his 
breast. Having shaken us by the hand with a grunt 
of salutation, the old man, dropping his red blanket 
from his shoulders, sat down cross-legged on the 
ground. We offered him a cup of sweetened water, 
at which he ejaculated " Good I " and was beginning 
to tell us how great a man he was, and how many 
Pawnees he had killed, when suddenly a motley 
concourse appeared wading across the creek towards 
us. They filed past in rapid succession, men, women, 
and children : some were on horseback, some on foot, 
but all were alike squalid and wretched. Old squaws, 
mounted astride of shaggy, meagre little ponies, with 



20 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

perhaps one or two snake-eyed children seated behind 
them, clinging to their tattered blankets; tall lank 
young men on foot, with bows and arrows in their 
hands; and girls whose native ugliness not all the 
charms of glass beads and scarlet cloth could disguise, 
made up the procession; although here and there 
was a man who, like our visitor, seemed to hold some 
rank in this respectable community. They were the 
dregs of the Kanzas nation, who, while their betters 
were gone to hunt the buffalo, had left the village 
on a begging expedition to Westport. 

"When this ragamuffin horde had passed, we caught 
our horses, saddled, harnessed, and resumed our 
journey. Fording the creek, the low roofs of a 
number of rude buildings appeared, rising from a 
cluster of groves and woods on the left; and riding 
up through a long lane amid a profusion of wild 
roses and early spring flowers, we found the log- 
church and schoolhouses belonging to the Methodist 
Shawanoe Mission. The Indians were on the point 
of gathering to a religious meeting. Some scores of 
them, tall men in half-civilized dress, were seated on 
wooden benches under the trees; while their horses 
were tied to the sheds and fences. Their chief. 
Parks, a remarkably large and athletic man, had 
just arrived from Westport, where he owns a trading 
establishment. Beside this, he has a large farm and 
a considerable number of slaves. Indeed, the Shawa- 
noes have made greater progress in agriculture than 
any other tribe on the Missouri, frontier, and both in 



BREAKING THE ICE. 21 

appearance and in character form a marked contrast 
to our late acquaintance, the Kanzas. 

A few hours' ride brought us to the banks of the 
river Kanzas. Traversing the woods that lined it, 
and ploughing through the deep sand, we encamped 
not far from the bank, at the Lower Delaware cross- 
ing. Our tent was erected for the first time, on a 
meadow close to the woods, and the camp prepara- 
tions being complete, we began to think of supper. 
An old Delaware woman, of some three hundred 
pounds' weight, sat in the porch of a little log-house, 
close to the water, and a very pretty half-breed girl 
was engaged, under her superintendence, in feeding 
a large flock of turkeys that were fluttering and gob- 
bling about the door. But no offers of money, or 
even of tobacco, could induce her to part with one of 
her favorites : so I took my rifle, to see if the Avoods 
or the river could furnish us anything. A multitude 
of quails were plaintively whistling in the meadows ; 
but nothing appropriate to the rifle was to be seen, 
except three buzzards, seated on the spectral limbs 
of an old dead sycamore, that thrust itself out over 
the river from the dense sunny wall of fresh foliage. 
Their ugly heads were drawn down between their 
shoulders, and they seemed to luxuriate in the soft 
sunshine that was pouring from the west. As they 
offered no epicurean temptations, I refrained from 
disturbing their enjoyment; but contented myself 
with admiring the calm beauty of the sunset, — for 
the river, eddying swiftly in deep purple shadows 



22 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

between the impending woods, formed a wild but 
tranquillizing scene. 

When I returned to the camp, I found Shaw and 
an old Indian seated on the ground in close confer- 
ence, passing the pipe between them. The old man 
was explaining that he loved the whites, and had 
an especial partiality for tobacco. Deslauriers was 
arranging upon the ground our service of tin cups 
and plates ; and as other viands were not to be had, 
he set before us a repast of biscuit and bacon, and a 
large pot of coffee. Unsheathing our knives, we 
attacked it, disposed of the greater part, and tossed 
the residue to the Indian. Meanwhile our horses, 
now hobbled for the first time, stood among the trees, 
with their fore-legs tied together, in great disgust 
and astonishment. They seemed by no means to 
relish this foretaste of what awaited them. Mine, in 
particular, had conceived a mortal aversion to the 
prairie life. One of them, christened Hendrick, an 
animal whose strength and hardihood were his only 
merits, and who yielded to nothing but the cogent 
arguments of the whip, looked toward us with an 
indignant countenance, as if he meditated avenging 
his wrongs with a kick. The other, Pontiac, a good 
horse, though of plebeian lineage, stood with his 
head drooping and his mane hanging about his eyes, 
with the grieved and sulky air of a lubberly boy sent 
off to school. His forebodings were but too just ; for 
when I last heard from him, he was under the lash of 
an Ogillallah brave, on a war-party against the Crows. 



BREAKIXG THE ICE. 23 

As it grew dark and the voices of the whippoor- 
wills succeeded the wliistle of the quails, we removed 
our saddles to the tent to serve as pillows, spread our 
blankets upon the ground, and prepared to bivouac 
for the first time that season. Each man selected 
the place in the tent which he was to occupy for the 
journey. To Deslauriers, however, was assigned the 
cart into which he could creep in Avet weather, and 
find a much better shelter than his bourgeois enjoyed 
in the tent. 

The river Kanzas at this point forms the boundary- 
line between the country of the Shawanoes and that 
of the Delawares. We crossed it on the following 
day, rafting over our horses and equipments with 
much difficulty, and unlading our cart in order to 
make our way up the steep ascent on the farther 
bank. It was a Sunday morning; warm, tranquil, 
and bright; and a perfect stillness reigned over the 
rough enclosures and neglected fields of the Dela- 
wares, except the ceaseless hum and chirruping of 
myriads of insects. Now and then an Indian rode 
past on his way to the meeting-house, or, through 
the dilapidated entrance of some shattered log-house, 
an old woman might be discerned enjoying all the 
luxury of idleness. There was no village bell, for 
the Delawares have none ; and yet upon that forlorn 
and rude settlement was the same spirit of Sabbath 
repose and tranquillity as in some New England 
village among the mountains of New Hampshire, or 
the Vermont woods. 



24 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

A military road led from tliis point to Fort Leaven- 
worth, and for many miles the farms and cabins of 
the Delawares were scattered at short intervals on 
either hand. The little rude structures of logs 
erected usually on the borders of a tract of woods 
made a picturesque feature in the landscape. But 
the scenery needed no foreign aid. Nature had done 
enough for it; and the alternation of rich green 
prairies and groves that stood in clusters, or lined 
the banks of the numerous little streams, had all the 
softened and polished beauty of a region that has 
been for centuries under the hand of man. At that 
early season, too, it was in the height of its freshness. 
The woods were flushed with the red buds of the 
maple ; there were frequent flowering shrubs unknown 
in the east; and the green swells of the prairie were 
thickly studded with blossoms. 

Encamping near a spring, by the side of a hill, we 
resumed our journey in the morning, and early in the 
afternoon were within a few miles of Fort Leaven- 
worth. The road crossed a stream densely bordered 
with trees, and running in the bottom of a deep 
woody hollow. We were about to descend into it 
when a wild and confused procession appeared, pass- 
ing through the water below, and coming up the 
steep ascent towards us. We stopped to let them 
pass. They were Delawares, just returned from a 
hunting expedition. All, both men and women, were 
mounted on horseback, and drove along with them 
a considerable number of pack-mules, laden with the 



BREAKING THE ICE. 25 

furs they had taken, together with the buffalo-robes, 
kettles, and other articles of their travelling equip- 
ment, which, as well as their clothing and their 
weapons, had a worn and dingy look, as if they had 
seen hard service of late. At the rear of the party 
was an old man, who, as he came up, stopped his 
horse to speak to us. He rode a tough shaggy pony, 
with mane and tail well knotted with burrs, and a 
rusty Spanish bit in its mouth, to which, by way of 
reins, was attached a string of raw hide. His saddle, 
robbed probably from a Mexican, had no covering, 
being merely a tree of the Spanish form, with a piece 
of grizzly bear's skin laid over it, a pair of rude 
wooden stirrups attached, and, in the absence of 
girth, a thong of hide passing around the horse's 
belly. The rider's dark features and keen snaky 
eye were unequivocally Indian. He wore a buck- 
skin frock, which, like his fringed leggins, was well 
polished and blackened by grease and long service, 
and an old handkerchief was tied around his head. 
Resting on the saddle before him lay his rifle, a 
weapon in the use of which the Delawares are skil- 
ful, though, from its weight, the distant prairie 
Indians are too lazy to carry it. 

" Who 's your chief?" he immediately inquired. 

Henry Chatillon pointed to us. The old Delaware 
fixed his eyes intently upon us for a moment, and 
then sententiously remarked, — 

"No good! Too young!" With this flattering 
comment he left us and rode after his people. 



26 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

This tribe, the Delawares, once the peaceful allies 
of William Penn, the tributaries of the conquering 
Iroquois, are now the most adventurous and dreaded 
warriors upon the prairies. They make war upon 
remote tribes, the very names of which were unknown 
to their fathers in their ancient seats in Pennsylvania, 
and they push these new quarrels with true Indian 
rancor, sending out their war-parties as far as the 
Rocky Mountains, and into the Mexican territories. 
Their neighbors and former confederates, the Shawa- 
noes, who are tolerable farmers, are in a jjrosperous 
condition; but the Delawares dwindle every year, 
from the number of men lost in their warlike 
expeditions. 

Soon after leaving this party we saw, stretching 
on the right, the forests that follow the course of the 
Missouri, and the deep woody channel through which 
at this point it runs. At a distance in front were 
the white barracks of Fort Leavenworth, just visible 
through the trees upon an eminence above a bend of 
the river. A wide green meadow, as level as a lake, 
lay between us and the Missouri, and upon this, 
close to a line of trees that bordered a little brook, 
stood the tent of the captain and his companions, 
with their horses feeding around it; but they them- 
selves were invisible. Wright, their muleteer, was 
there, seated on the tongue of the wagon, repairing 
his harness. Boisverd stood cleaning his rifle at the 
door of the tent, and Sorel lounged idly about. On 
closer examination, however, we discovered the cap- 



BREAKING THE ICE. 27 

tain's brother, Jack, sitting in the tent, at his old 
occupation of splicing trail-ropes. He welcomed us 
in his broad Irish brogue, and said that his brother 
was fishing in the river, and R gone to the garri- 
son. They returned before sunset. Meanwhile we 
pitched our own tent not far off, and after supper a 
council was held, in which it was resolved to remain 
one day at Fort Leavenworth, and on the next to 
bid a final adieu to the frontier, or, in the phraseology 
of the region, to "jump off." Our deliberations 
were conducted by the ruddy light from a distant 
swell of the prairie where the long dry grass of last 
summer was on fire. 



CHAPTER III. 

FORT LEAVENWORTH. 

On the next morning we rode to Fort Leavenworth. 
Colonel, now General Kearney, to whom I had had 
the honor of an introduction when at St. Louis, was 
just arrived, and received us at his quarters with the 
courtesy habitual to him. Fort Leavenworth is in 
fact no fort, being without defensive works, except 
two blockhouses. No rumors of war had as yet 
disturbed its tranquillity. In the square grassy area, 
surrounded by barracks and the quarters of the 
officers, the men were passing and repassing, or 
lounging among the trees ; although not many weeks 
afterwards it presented a different scene, for here 
the offscourings of the frontier were congregated for 
the expedition against Santa Fd. 

Passing through the garrison, we rode toward the 
Kickapoo village, five or six miles beyond. The 
path, a rather dubious and uncertain one, led us 
along the ridge of high bluffs that border the Mis- 
souri ; and, by looking to the right or to the left, we 
could enjoy a strange contrast of scenery. On the 
left stretched the prairie, rising into swells and 
undulations, thickly sprinkled with groves, or grace- 
fully expanding into wide grassy basins, of miles in 



FORT LEAVENWORTH. 29 

extent; while its curvatures, swelling against the 
horizon, were often surmounted by lines of sunny- 
woods ; a scene to which the freshness of the season 
and the peculiar mellowness of the atmosphere gave 
additional softness. Below us, on the right, was a 
tract of ragged and broken woods. We could look 
down on the tops of the trees, some living and some 
dead ; some erect, others leaning at every angle, and 
others piled in masses together by the passage of a 
hurricane. Beyond their extreme verge the turbid 
waters of the Missouri were discernible through the 
boughs, rolling powerfully along at the foot of the 
woody declivities on its farther bank. 

The path soon after led inland ; and, as we crossed 
an open meadow, we saw a cluster of buildings on a 
rising ground before us, with a crowd of people sur- 
rounding them. They were the storehouse, cottage, 
and stables of the Kickapoo trader's establishment. 
Just at that moment, as it chanced, he was beset 
with half the Indians of the settlement. They had 
tied their wretched, • neglected little ponies by dozens 
along the fences and out-houses, and were either 
lounging about the place, or crowding into the trad- 
ing-house. Here were faces of various colors: red, 
green, white, and black, curiously intermingled and 
disposed over the visage in a variety of patterns. 
Calico shirts, red and blue blankets, brass ear-rings, 
wampum necklaces, appeared in profusion. The 
trader was a blue-eyed, open-faced man, who neither 
in his manners nor his appearance betrayed any of 



30 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the roughness of the frontier ; though just at present 
he was obliged to keep a lynx eye on his customers, 
who, men and women, were climbing on his counter, 
and seating themselves among his boxes and bales. 

The village itself was not far off, and sufficiently 
illustrated the condition of its unfortunate and self- 
abandoned occupants. Fancy to yourself a little 
swift stream, working its devious way down a woody 
valley; sometimes wholly hidden under logs and 
fallen trees, sometimes spreading into a broad, clear 
pool ; and on its banks, in little nooks cleared away 
among the trees, miniature log-houses, in utter ruin 
and neglect. A labyrinth of narrow, obstructed 
paths connected these habitations one with another. 
Sometimes we met a stray calf, a pig, or a pony, 
belonging to some of the villagers, who usually lay 
in the sun in front of their dwellings, and looked 
on us with cold, suspicious eyes as we approached. 
Farther on, in place of the log-huts of the Kickapoos, 
we found the pukwi lodges of their neighbors, the 
Pottawattamies, whose condition seemed no better 
than theirs. 

Growing tired at last, and exhausted by the exces- 
sive heat and sultriness of the day, we returned to 
our friend, the trader. By this time the crowd 
around him had dispersed, and left him at leisure. 
He invited us to his cottage, a little white-and-green 
building, in the style of the old French settlements, 
and ushered us into a neat, well-furnished room. 
The blinds were closed, and the heat and glare of 



FORT LEAVENWORTH. 31 

the sun excluded ; the room was as cool as a cavern. 
It was neatly carpeted, too, and furnished in a 
manner that Ave hardly expected on the frontier. 
The sofas, chairs, tables, and a well-filled bookcase 
would not have disgraced an eastern city, though 
there were one or two little tokens that indicated the 
rather questionable civilization of the region. A 
pistol, loaded and capped, lay on the mantel-piece; 
and through the glass of the bookcase, peeping above 
the works of John Milton, glittered the handle of a 
very mischievous-looking knife. 

Our host went out, and returned with iced water, 
glasses, and a bottle of excellent claret, — a refresh- 
ment most welcome in the extreme heat of the day ; 
and soon after appeared a merry, laughing woman, 
who must have been, a year or two before, a very 
rich specimen of Creole beauty. She came to say 
that lunch was ready in the next room. Our hostess 
evidently lived on the sunny side of life, and troubled 
herself with none of its cares. She sat down and 
entertained us while we were at table with anecdotes 
of fishing-parties, frolics, and the officers at the fort. 
Taking leave at length of the hospitable trader and 
his friend, we rode back to the garrison. 

Shaw passed on to the camp, while I remained to 
call upon Colonel Kearney. I found him still at 
table. There sat our friend the captain, in the same 
remarkable habiliments in which we saw him at 
Westport; the black pipe, however, being for the 
present laid aside. He dangled his little cap in his 



32 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

hand, and talked of steeple-chases, touching occa- 
sionally upon his anticipated exploits in buffalo- 
hunting. There, too, was R , somewhat more 

elegantly attired. For the last time, we tasted the 
luxuries of civilization, and drank adieus to it in 
wine good enough to make us regret the leave-taking. 
Then, mounting, we rode together to the camp, Avhere 
everything was in readiness for departure on the 
morrow. 



CHAPTER IV. 

"JUMPING OFF." 

Our transatlantic companions were well equipped 
for the journey. They had a wagon drawn by six 
mules, and crammed with provisions for six months, 
besides ammunition enough for a regiment; spare 
rifles and fowling-pieces, ropes and harness, personal 
baggage, and a miscellaneous assortment of articles, 
which produced infinite embarrassment. They had 
also decorated their persons with telescopes and port- 
able compasses, and carried English double-barrelled 
rifles of sixteen to the pound calibre, slung to their 
saddles in dragoon fashion. 

By sunrise on the twenty-third of May Ave had 
breakfasted; the tents were levelled, the animals 
saddled and harnessed, and all was prepared. " Avance 
done! get up!" cried Deslauriers to his mule. 
Wright, our friends' muleteer, after some swearing 
and lashing, got his insubordinate train in motion, 
and then the whole party filed from the ground. Thus 
we bade a long adieu to bed and board, and the 
principles of Blackstone's Commentaries. The day 
was a most auspicious one ; and yet Shaw and I felt 
certain misgivings, which in the sequel proved but 
too well founded. We had just learned that though 



34 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

R had taken it upon him to adopt tliis course 

without consulting us, not a single man in tlie party 
knew the way; and the absurdity of the jjroceeding 
soon became manifest. His jjlan was to strike the 
trail of several companies of dragoons, who last sum- 
mer had made an expedition under Colonel Kearney 
to Fort Laramie, and by this means to reach the 
grand trail of the Oregon emigrants up the Platte. 
We rode for an hour or two, when a familiar 
cluster of buildings appeared on a little hill. " Hallo ! " 
shouted the Kickapoo trader from over his fence, 
" where are you going ? " A few rather emj)hatic 
exclamations might have been heard among us, when 
we found that we had gone miles out of our way, 
and were not advanced an inch toward the Rocky 
Mountains. So we turned in the direction the trader 
indicated; and with the sun for a guide, began to 
trace a "bee-line " across the prairies. We struggled 
through copses and lines of wood; we waded brooks 
and pools of water; we traversed prairies as green as 
an emerald, expanding before us mile after mile, 
wider and more wild than the wastes Mazeppa rode 
over. 

" Man nor brute, 
Nor dint of lioof, nor print of foot. 
Lay in tlie wild luxuriant soil ; 
No sign of travel ; none of toil ; 
The very air was mute." 

Riding in advance, as we passed over one of these 
great plains, we looked back and saw the line of 



"JUMPING OFF." 35 

scattered horsemen stretching for a mile or more; 
and, far in the rear, against the horizon, the white 
wagons creeping slowly along. "Here we are at 
last!" shouted the captain. And, in truth, we had 
struck upon the traces of a large body of horse. 
We turned joyfully and followed this new course, 
with tempers somewhat improved; and towards sun- 
set encamped on a high swell of the prairie, at the 
foot of which a lazy stream soaked along through 
clumps of rank grass. It was getting dark. We 
turned the horses loose to feed. "Drive down the 
tent-pickets hard," said Henry Chatillon; "it is going 
to blow." We did so, and secured the tent as well 
as we could ; for the sky had changed totally, and a 
fresh damp smell in the wind warned us that a 
stormy night was likely to succeed the hot, clear 
day. The prairie also wore a new aspect, and its 
vast swells had grown black and sombre under the 
shadow of the clouds. The thunder soon began to 
growl at a distance. Picketing and hobbling the 
horses among the rich grass at the foot of the slope 
where we encamped, we gained a shelter just as the 
rain began to fall; and sat at the opening of the 
tent, watching the proceedings of the captain. In 
defiance of the rain, he was stalking among the 
horses, wrapped in an old Scotch plaid. An extreme 
solicitude tormented him, lest some of his favorites 
should c..cape, or some accident should befall them ; 
and he cast an anxious eye towards three wolves 
who were sneaking along over the dreary surface of 



36 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the plain, as if he dreaded some hostile demonstra- 
tion on their part. 

On the next morning we had gone but a mile or 
two when we came to an extensive belt of woods, 
through the midst of which ran a stream, wide, deep, 
and of an appearance particularly muddy and treach- 
erous. Deslauriers was in advance with his cart; he 
jerked his pipe from his mouth, lashed his mules, 
and poured forth a volley of Canadian ejaculations. 
In plunged the cart, but midway it stuck fast. He 
leaped out knee-deep in water, and, by dint of sacres 
and a vigorous application of the whip, urged the 
mules out of the slough. Then approached the long 
team and heavy wagon of our friends ; but it paused 
on the brink. 

" Now my advice is — " began the captain, who 
had been anxiously contemplating the muddy gulf. 

" Drive on ! " cried R . 

But "Wright, the muleteer, apparently had not as 
yet decided the point in his own mind ; and he sat 
still in his seat, on one of the shaft-mules, whistling 
in a low contemplative strain to himself. 

"My advice is," resumed the captain, "that we 
unload ; for I '11 bet any man five pounds that if we 
try to go through we shall stick fast." 

"By the powers, we shall stick fast!" echoed 
Jack, the captain's brother, shaking his large head 
with an air of firm conviction. 

"Drive on! drive on! " cried R , petulantly. 

"Well," observed the captain, turning to us as 



"JUMPING OFF." 37 

we sat looking or, inucli edified by this by-play 
among our confederates, " I can only give my advice, 
and if people won't be reasonable, why, they won't, 
that's all!" 

Meanwhile Wright had apparently made up his 
mind ; for he suddenly began to shout forth a volley 
of oaths and curses, that, compared with the French 
imprecations of Deslauriers, sounded like the roaring 
of heavy cannon after the popping and sputtering of 
a bunch of Chinese crackers. At the same time he 
discharged a shower of blows upon his mules, who 
hastily dived into the mud, and drew the wagon 
lumbering after them. For a moment the issue was 
doubtful. Wright writhed about in his saddle, and 
swore and lashed like a madman ; but who can count 
on a team of half-broken mules? At the most criti- 
cal point, when all should have been harmony and 
combined effort, the perverse brutes fell into disorder, 
and huddled together in confusion on the farther 
bank. There was the wagon up to the hub in mud, 
and visibly settling every instant. There was noth- 
ing for it but to unload ; then to dig away the mud 
from before the wheels with a spade, and lay a cause- 
way of bushes and branches. This agreeable labor 
accomplished, the wagon at length emerged; but as 
some interruption of this sort occurred at least four 
or five times a day for a fortnight, our progress 
towards the Platte was not without its obstacles. 

We travelled six or seven miles farther, and 
"nooned" near a brook. On the point of resuming 



38 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

our journey, when the horses were all driven clown 
to water, my homesick charger, Pontiac, made a 
sudden leap across, and set off at a round trot for 
the settlements. I mounted my remaining horse and 
started in pursuit. Making a circuit, I headed the 
runaway, hoping to drive him back to camp, but he 
instantly broke into a gallop, made a wide tour on 
the prairie, and got by me again. I tried this plan 
repeatedly with the same result; Pontiac was evi- 
dently disgusted with the prairie, so I abandoned it 
and tried another, trotting along gently behind him, 
in hopes that I might quietly get near enough to 
seize the trail-rope which was fastened to his neck, 
and dragged about a dozen feet behind him. The 
chase grew interesting. For mile after mile I fol- 
lowed the rascal with the utmost care not to alarm 
him, and gradually got nearer, until at length old 
Hendrick's nose was fairly brushed by the whisking 
tail of the unsuspecting Pontiac. Without drawing 
rein I slid softly to the ground ; but my long heavy 
rifle encumbered me, and the low sound it made in 
striking the horn of the saddle startled him, he 
pricked up his ears and sprang off at a run. "My 
friend," thought I, remounting, "do that again and 
I will shoot you! " 

Fort Leavenworth was about forty miles distant, 
and thither I determined to follow him. I made up 
my mind to spend a solitary and supperless night, 
and then set out again in the morning. One hoj)e, 
however, remained. The creek where the wagon 



"JUMPING OFF." 39 

had stuck was just before us; Pontiac might be 
thirsty with his run and stop tliere to drink. I kept 
as near him as possible, taking every precaution not 
to alarm him again ; and the result proved as I had 
hoped, for he walked deliberately among the trees 
and stooped down to the water. I alighted, dragged 
old Hendrick through the mud, and with a feeling 
of infinite satisfaction picked up the slimy trail-rope, 
and twisted it three times round my hand. "Now 
let me see you get away again ! " I thought, as I 
remounted. But Pontiac was exceedingly reluctant 
to turn back; Hetidrick, too, who had evidently 
flattered himself with vain hopes, showed the utmost 
repugnance, and grumbled in a manner peculiar to 
himself at being compelled to face about. A smart 
cut of the whip restored his cheerfulness ; and, drag- 
ging the recovered truant behind, I set out in search 
of the camp. An hour or two elapsed, when, near 
sunset, I saw the tents, standing on a swell of the 
prairie, beyond a line of woods, while the bands of 
horses were feeding in a low meadow close at hand. 

There sat Jack C , cross-legged, in the sun, 

splicing a trail-rope ; and the rest were lying on the 
grass, smoking and telling stones. That night we 
enjoyed a serenade from the wolves, more lively than 
any with which they had yet favored us ; and in the 
morning one of the musicians appeared, not many 
rods from the tents, quietly seated among the horses, 
looking at us w^ith a pair of large gray eyes; but 
perceiving a rifle levelled at him, he leaped up and 
made off in hot haste. 



40 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

I pass by the following day or two of our journc}', 
for nothing occurred worthy of record. Should any 
one of my readers ever be impelled to visit the 
prairies, and should he choose the route of the Platte 
(the best, perhaps, that can be adopted), I can assure 
him that he need not think to enter at once upon the 
paradise of his imagination. A dreary preliminary, 
a protracted crossing of the threshold, awaits him 
before he finds himself fairly upon the verge of the 
"great American desert," — those barren wastes, the 
haunts of the buffalo and the Indian, where the very 
shadow of civilization lies a hundred leagues behind 
him. The intervening country, the wide and fertile 
belt that extends for several hundred miles beyond 
the extreme frontier, will probably answer tolerably 
well to his preconceived ideas of the prairie; for this 
it is from which picturesque tourists, painters, poets, 
and novelists, who have seldom penetrated farther, 
have derived their conceptions of the whole region. 
If he has a painter's eye, he may find his period of 
probation not wholly void of interest. The scenery, 
though tame, is graceful and pleasing. Here are 
level plains, too wide for the eye to measure ; green 
undulations, like motionless swells of the ocean; 
abundance of streams, followed through all their 
windings by lines of woods and scattered groves. 
But let him be as enthusiastic as he may, he will 
find enough to damp his ardor. His wagons will 
stick in the mud ; his horses will break loose ; harness 
will give way; and axle-trees prove unsound. His 



"JUMPING OFF." 41 

bed will be a soft one, consisting often of black mud 
of the richest consistency. As for food, he must 
content himself with biscuit and salt provisions ; for, 
strange as it may seem, this tract of country pro- 
duces very little game. As he advances, indeed, he 
will see, mouldering in the grass by his path, the 
vast antlers of the elk, and farther on the whitened 
skulls of the buffalo, once swarming over this now 
deserted region. Perhaps, like us, he may journey 
for a fortnight, and see not so much as the hoof- 
print of a deer; in the spring, not even a prairie-hen 
is to be had. 

Yet, to compensate him for this unlooked-for 
deficiency of game, he will find himself beset with 
"varmints " innumerable. The wolves will entertain 
him with a concert at night, and skulk around him 
by day, just beyond rifle-shot; his horse will step 
into badger-holes ; from every marsh and mud-puddle 
will arise the bellowing, croaking, and trilling of 
legions of frogs, infinitely various in color, shape, 
and dimensions. A profusion of snakes will glide 
away from under his horse's feet, or quietly visit 
him in his tent at night; while the pertinacious 
humming of unnumbered mosquitoes will banish 
sleep from his eyelids. When, thirsty with a long 
ride in the scorching sun over some boundless reach 
of prairie, he comes at length to a pool of water, 
and alights to drink, he discovers a troop of young 
tadpoles sporting in the bottom of his cup. Add to 
this, that, all the morning, the sun beats upon him 



42 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

witli a sultry, penetrating heat, and that, with pro- 
voking regularity, at about four o'clock in the after- 
noon, a thunderstorm rises and drenches him to the 
skin. 

One day, after a protracted morning's ride, we 
stopped to rest at noon upon the open prairie. No 
trees were in sight; but close at hand a little drib- 
bling Ijrook was twisting from side to side through 
a hollow; now forming holes of stagnant water, and 
now gliding over the mud in a scarcely perceptible 
current, among a growth of sickly bushes, and great 
clumps of tall rank grass. The day was excessively 
hot and oppressive. The horses and mules were 
rolling on the prairie to refresh themselves, or feed- 
ing among the bushes in the hollow. We had dined ; 
and Deslauriers, puffing at his pipe, knelt on the 
grass, scrubbing our service of tin-plate. Shaw lay 
in the shade, under the cart, to rest for a while before 
the word should be given to "catch up." Henry 
Chatillon, before lying down, was looking about for 
signs of snakes, the only living things that he feared, 
and uttering various ejaculations of disgust at finding 
several suspicious-looking holes close to the cart. I 
sat leaning against the wheel in a scanty strip of 
shade, making a pair of hobbles to replace those 
which my contumacious steed Pontiac had broken 
the night before. The camp of our friends, a rod 
or two distant, presented the same scene of lazy 
tranquillity. 

"Hallo!" cried Henry, looking up from his in^ 



"JUMPING OFF." 43 

spection of the snake-holes, "here comes the old 
captam." 

The captain approached, and stood for a moment 
contemplatmg ns m silence. 

"I say, Parkman," he began, "look at Shaw there, 
asleep under the cart, with the tar dripping off the 
hub of the wheel on his shoulder." 

At this Shaw got up, with his eyes half opened, 
and feeling the part indicated, found his hand glued 
fast to his red flannel shirt. 

" He '11 look well, when he gets among the squaws, 
won't he?" observed the captain, with a grin. 

He then crawled under the cart, and began to tell 
stories, of which his stock was inexhaustible. Yet 
every moment he would glance nervously at the 
horses. At last he jumped up in great excitement. 
" See that horse ! There — that fellow just walking 
over the hill ! By Jove ! he 's off. It 's your big 
horse, Shaw; no, it is n't, it's Jack's. Jack! Jack! 
hallo. Jack!" Jack, thus invoked, jumped up and 
stared vacantly at us. 

"Go and catch your horse, if you don't want to 
lose him," roared the captain. 

Jack instantly set off at a run through the grass, 
his broad trousers flapping about his feet. The cap- 
tain gazed anxiously till he saw that the horse was 
caught; then he sat down, with a countenance of 
thoughtfulness and care. 

"I tell you what it is," he said, "this will never 
do at all. We shall lose every horse in the band 



44 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

some day or other, and theu a pretty plight we 
should be in! Now I am convinced that the only 
way for us is to have every man in the camp stand 
horse-guard in rotation whenever we stop. Suppos- 
ing a hundred Pawnees should jump up out of that 
ravine, all yelling and flapping their buffalo robes, 
in the way they do ! Why, in two minutes, not a 
hoof would be in sight." We reminded the captain 
that a hundred Pawnees would probably demolish the 
horse-guard if he were to resist their depredations. 

"At any rate," pursued the captain, evading the 
point, "our whole system is wrong; I'm convinced 
of it; it is totally unmilitary. Why, the way we 
travel, strung out over the prairie for a mile, an 
enemy might attack the foremost men, and cut them 
off before the rest could come up." 

"We are not in an enemy's country yet," said 
Shaw; "when we are, we'll travel together." 

"Then," said the captain, "we might be attacked 
in camp. We 've no sentinels ; we 'camp in disorder; 
no precautions at all to guard against surprise. My 
own convictions are, that we ought to 'camp in a 
hollow-square, with the fires in the centre ; and have 
sentinels, and a regular password appointed for every 
night. Beside, there should be videttes, riding in 
advance, to find a place for the camp and give warn- 
ing of an enemy. These are my convictions. I 
don't want to dictate to any man. I give advice to 
the best of my judgment, that 's all ; and then let 
people do as they please." 



"JUMPING OFF." 45 

His plan of sending out videttes seemed particu- 
larly dear to him ; and as no one else was disposed to 
second his views on this point, he took it into his 
head to ride forward that afternoon himself. 

"Come, Parkman," said he, "will you go with 
me?" 

We set out together, and rode a mile or two in 
advance. The captain, in the course of twenty years' 
service in the British army, had seen something of 
life ; and being naturally a pleasant fellow, he was a 
very entertaining companion. He cracked jokes and 
told stories for an hour or two ; until, looking back, 
we saw the prairie behind us stretching away to the 
horizon, without a horseman or a wagon in sight. 

"Now," said the captain, "I think the videttes 
had better stop till the main body comes up." 

I was of the same opinion. There was a thick 
growth of woods just before us, with a stream run- 
ning through them. Having crossed this, we found 
on the other side a level meadow, half encircled by 
the trees; and, fastening our horses to some bushes, 
we sat down on the grass, while, with an old stump 
of a tree for a target, I began to display the superior- 
ity of the renowned rifle of the backwoods over the 
foreign innovation borne by the captain. At length 
voices could be heard in the distance, behind the 
trees. 

"There they come," said the captain; "let's go 
and see how they get through the creek." 

We mounted and rode to the bank of the stream, 



46 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

where the trail crossed it. It ran in a deep hollow, 
full of trees. As we looked down, we saw a con- 
fused crowd of horsemen riding through the water; 
and among the dingy habiliments of our party glit- 
tered the uniforms of four dragoons. 

Shaw came whipping his horse up the hank, in 
advance of the rest, with a somewhat indignant coun- 
tenance. The first word he spoke was a blessing 

fervently invoked on the head of R , who was 

riding, with a crestfallen air, in the rear. Thanks 
to the ingenious devices of this gentleman, we had 
missed the track entirely, and wandered, not towards 
the Platte, but to the village of the Iowa Indians. 
This we learned from the dragoons, who had lately 
deserted from Fort Leavenworth. They told us that 
our best plan now was to keep to the northward until 
we should strike the trail formed by several parties 
of Oregon emigrants, who had that season set out 
from St. Joseph, in Missouri. 

In extremely bad temper, we encamped on this 
ill-starred spot, while the deserters, whose case 
admitted of no delay, rode rapidly forward. On the 
day following, striking the St. Joseph's trail, we 
turned our horses' heads towards Fort Laramie, 
then about seven hundred miles to the westward. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE "BIG BLUE." 

The great medley of Oregon and California emi- 
grants at their camps around Independence had heard 
reports that several additional parties were on the 
point of setting out from St. Joseph farther to the 
northward. The prevailing impression was that 
these were Mormons, twenty-three hundred in num- 
ber; and a great alarm was excited in consequence. 
The people of Illinois and Missouri, who composed 
by far the greater part of the emigrants, have never 
been on the best terms with the " Latter Day Saints ; " 
and it is notorious throughout the country how much 
blood has been spilt in their feuds, even far within 
the limits of the settlements. No one could predict 
what would be the result, when large armed bodies 
of these fanatics should encounter the most impetu- 
ous and reckless of their old enemies on the broad 
prairie, far beyond the reach of law or military force. 
The women and children at Independence raised a 
great outcry; the men themselves were seriously 
alarmed; and, as I learned, they sent to Colonel 
Kearney, requesting an escort of dragoons as far as 
the Platte. This was refused; and, as the sequel 
proved, there was no occasion for it. The St. Joseph 



48 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

emigrants were as good Christians and as zealous 
Mormon-haters as the rest; and the very few families 
of the " Saints " who passed out this season by the 
route of the Platte remained behind until the great 
tide of emigration had gone by, standing in quite as 
much awe of the "gentiles" as the latter did of 
them. 

We were now upon this St. Joseph trail. It was 
evident, by the traces, that large parties were a 
few days in advance of us ; and as we too supposed 
them to be Mormons, we had some apprehension of 
interruption. 

The journey was monotonous. One day we rode 
on for hours, without seeing a tree or a bush : before, 
behind, and on either side, stretched the vast expanse, 
rolling in a succession of graceful swells, covered 
with the unbroken carpet of fresh green grass. Here 
and there a crow, a raven, or a turkey-buzzard, 
relieved the uniformity. 

"What shall we do to-night for wood and water?" 
we began to ask of each other ; for the sun was with- 
in an hour of setting. At length a dark green speck 
appeared, far off on the right: it was the top of a 
tree, peering over a swell of the prairie ; and, leaving 
the trail, we made all haste towards it. It proved 
to be the vanguard of a cluster of bushes and low 
trees, that surrounded some pools of water in an 
extensive hollow; so we encamped on the rising 
ground near it. 

Shaw and I were sitting in the tent, when Deslau- 



THE "BICx BLUE." 49 

riers thrust his brown face and old felt hat into the 
opening, and, dilating his eyes to their utmost extent, 
announced supper. There were the tin cups and the 
iron spoons, arranged in order on the grass, and the 
coffee-pot predominant in the midst. The meal was 
soon despatched ; but Henry Chatillon still sat cross- 
legged, dallying with the remnant of his coffee, the 
beverage in universal use upon the prairie, and an 
especial favorite with him. He preferred it in its 
virgin flavor, unimpaired by sugar or cream ; and on 
the present occasion it met his entire approval, being 
exceedingly strong, or, as he expressed it, "right 
black." 

It was a gorgeous sunset ; and the ruddy glow of 
the sky was reflected from some extensive pools of 
water among the shadov/y copses in the meadow 
below. 

"I must have a bath to-night," said Shaw. "How 
is it, Deslauriers? Any chance for a swim down 
there?" 

"Ah! I cannot tell; just as you please, Monsieur," 
replied Deslauriers, shrugging his shoulders, per- 
plexed by his ignorance of English, and extremely 
anxious to conform in all respects to the opinions 
and wishes of his bourgeois. 

"Look at his moccason," said I. It had evidently 
been lately immersed in a profound abyss of black 
mud. 

"Come," said Shaw; "at any rate we can see for 

ourselves." 

4 



60 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

We set out together; and as we approached the 
bushes, which were at some distance, we found the 
ground becoming rather treacherous. We could 
only get along by stepping upon large clumps of tall 
rank grass, with fathomless gulfs between, like 
innumerable little quaking islands in an ocean of 
mud, where a false step would have involved our 
boots in a catastrophe like that which had befallen 
Deslauriers's moccasons. The thing looked desper- 
ate; we separated, to search in different directions, 
Shaw going off to the right, while I kept straight 
forward. At last I came to the edge of the bushes, 
— they were young water- willows, covered with their 
caterpillar-like blossoms, but intervening between 
them and the last grass-clump was a black and deep 
slough, over which, by a vigorous exertion, I con- 
trived to jump. Then I shouldered my way through 
the willows, trampling them down by main force, till 
I came to a wide stream of water, three inches deep, 
languidly creeping along over a bottom of sleek mud. 
INIy arrival produced a great commotion. A huge 
green bull-frog uttered an indignant croak, and 
jumped off the bank with a loud splash; his webbed 
feet twinkled above the surface, as he jerked them 
energetically upward, and I could see him ensconcing 
himself in the unresisting slime at the bottom, whence 
several large air-bubbles struggled lazily to the top. 
Some little spotted frogs followed the patriarch's 
example; and then three turtles, not larger than a 
dollar, tumbled themselves off a broad "lily pad," 



THE "BIG BLUE." 51 

where they had been reposing. At the same time a 
snake, gayly striped with black and yellow, glided 
out from the bank, and writhed across to the other 
side ; and a small stagnant pool into which my foot 
had inadvertently pushed a stone was instantly alive 
with a congregation of black tadpoles. 

"Any chance for a bath where you are?" called 
out Shaw, from a distance. 

The answer was not encouraging. I retreated 
through the willows, and rejoining my companion, 
we proceeded to push our researches in company. 
Not far on the right, a rising ground, covered with 
trees and bushes, seemed to sink down abruptly to 
the water, and give hope of better success ; so towards 
this we directed our steps. When we reached the 
place we found it no easy matter to get along between 
the hill and the water, impeded as we were by a 
growth of stiff, obstinate young birch-trees, laced 
together by grape-vines. In the twilight we now 
and then, to support ourselves, snatched at the 
touch-me-not stem of some ancient sweetbrier. 
Shaw, who was in advance, suddenly uttered an 
emphatic monosyllable; and, looking up, I saw him 
with one hand grasping a sapling, and one foot 
immersed in the water, from which he had forgotten 
to withdraw it, his whole attention being engaged in 
contemplating the movements of a water-snake, about 
five feet long, curiously checkered with black and 
green, who was deliberately swimming across the 
pool. There being no stick or stone at hand to pelt 



62 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

him with, we looked at him for a time in silent dis- 
gust, and then pushed forward. Our perseverance 
was at last rewarded; for, several rods farther on, 
we emerged upon a little level grassy nook among 
the brushwood, and by an extraordinary dispensation 
of fortune, the weeds and floating sticks, which else- 
where covered the pool, seemed to have drawn apart, 
and left a few yards of clear water just in front of 
this favored spot. We sounded it with a stick; it 
was four feet deep: we lifted a specimen in our 
closed hands; it seemed reasonably transparent, so 
we decided that the time for action was arrived. 
But our ablutions were suddenly interrupted by ten 
thousand punctures, like poisoned needles, and the 
humming of myriads of overgrown mosquitoes, rising 
in all directions from their native mud and swarm- 
ing to the feast. We were fain to beat a retreat with 
all possible speed. 

We made towards the tents, much refreshed by the 
bath, which the heat of the weather, joined to our 
prejudices, had rendered very desirable. 

"What's the matter with the captain? look at 
him!" said Shaw. The captain stood alone on the 
prairie, swinging his hat violently around his head, 
and lifting first one foot and then the other, without 
moving from the spot. First he looked down to the 
ground with an air of supreme abhorrence; then he 
gazed upward with a perplexed and indignant coun- 
tenance, as if trying to trace the flight of an unseen 
enemy. We called to know what was the matter; 



THE " BIG BLUE." 53 

but lie replied only by execrations directed against 
some unknown object. We approached, when our 
ears were saluted by a droning sound, as if twenty 
bee-hives had been overturned at once. The air 
above was full of large black insects, in a state of 
great commotion, and multitudes were flying about 
just above the tops of the grass-blades. 

"Don't be afraid," called the captain, observing 
us recoil. "The brutes won't sting." 

At this I knocked one down with my hat, and dis- 
covered him to be no other than a " dor-bug ; " and, 
looldng closer, we found the ground thickly perfo- 
rated with their holes. 

We took a hasty leave of this flourishing colony, 
and walking up the rising ground to the tents, 
found Deslauriers's fire still glowing brightly. We 
sat down around it, and Shaw began to expatiate on 
the admirable facilities for bathing that we had dis- 
covered, recommending the captain by all means to 
go down there before breakfast in the morning. 
The captain was in the act of remarking that he 
could n't have believed it possible, when he suddenly 
interrupted himself, and clapped his hand to his 
cheek, exclaiming that "those infernal humbugs 
were at him again." In fact, we began to hear 
sounds as if bullets were humming over our heads. 
In a moment something rapped me sharply on the 
forehead, then upon the neck, and immediately I 
felt an indefinite number of sharp wiry claws in 
active motion, as if their owner were bent on pushing 



54 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

his explorations farther. I seized him, and dropped 
him into the fii'e. Our party speedily broke up, and 
we adjourned to our respective tents, where, closing 
the opening fast, we hoped to be exempt from inva- 
sion. But all precaution was fruitless. The dor- 
bugs hummed through the tent, and marched over 
our faces until daylight ; when, opening our blankets, 
we found several dozen clinging there with the 
utmost tenacity. The first object that met our eyes 
in the morning was Deslauriers, who seemed to be 
apostrophizing his frying-pan, which he held by the 
handle, at arm's length. It appeared that he had 
left it at night by the fire; and the bottom was now 
covered with dor-bugs, firmly imbedded. Hundreds 
of others, curiously parched and shrivelled, lay 
scattered among the ashes. 

The horses and mules were turned loose to feed. 
We had just taken our seats at breakfast, or rather 
reclined in the classic mode, when an exclamation 
from Henry Chatillon, and a shout of alarm from the 
captain, gave warning of some casualty, and looking 
up, we saw the whole band of animals, twenty-three 
in number, filing off for the settlements, the incor- 
rigible Pontiac at their head, jumping along with 
hobbled feet, at a gait much more rapid than grace- 
ful. Three or four of us ran to cut them off, dash- 
ing as best we might through the tall grass, which 
was glittering with dewdrops. After a race of a 
mile or more, Shaw caught a horse. Tying the 
trail-rope by way of bridle round the animal's jaw, 



THE "BIG BLUE." 55 

and leaping upon his back, he got in advance of the 
remaining fugitives, while we, soon bringing them 
together, drove them in a crowd up to the tents, 
where each man caught and saddled his own. Then 
were heard lamentations and curses; for half the 
horses had broken their hobbles, and many were 
seriously galled by attempting to run in fetters. 

It was late that morning before we were on the 
march; and early in the afternoon we were com- 
pelled to encamp, for a thunder-gust came up and 
suddenly enveloped us in whirling sheets of rain. 
With much ado v/e pitched our tents amid the 
tempest, and all night long the thunder bellowed and 
growled over our heads. In the morning light 
peaceful showers succeeded the cataracts of rain, 
that had been drenching us through the canvas of 
our tents. About noon, when there were some 
treacherous indications of fair weather, we got in 
motion again. 

Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open 
prairie; the clouds were like light piles of cotton; 
and where the blue sky was visible, it wore a hazy 
and languid aspect. The sun beat down upon us 
with a sultry, penetrating heat almost insupportable, 
and as our party crept slowly along over the inter- 
minable level, the horses hung their heads as they 
waded fetlock deep through the mud, and the men 
slouched into the easiest position upon the saddle. 
At last, towards evening, the old familiar black 
heads of thunder-clouds rose fast above the horizon, 



66 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and the same deep muttering of distant thunder that 
had become the ordinary accompaniment of our after- 
noon's journey began to roll hoarsely over the 
prairie. Only a few minutes elapsed before the 
whole sky was densely slu'ouded, and the prairie and 
some clusters of woods in front assumed a purple 
hue beneath the inky shadows. Suddenly from the 
densest fold of the cloud the flash leaped out, quiver- 
ing again and again down to the edge of the prairie ; 
and at the same instant came the sharp burst and the 
long rolling peal of the thunder. A cool wind, 
filled with the smell of rain, just then overtook us, 
levelling the tall grass by the side of the path. 

"Come on; we must ride for it!" shouted Shaw, 
rushing by at full speed, his led horse snorting at 
his side. The whole party broke into full gallop, 
and made for the trees in front. Passing these, we 
found beyond them a meadow which they half 
enclosed. We rode pell-mell upon the ground, 
leaped from horseback, tore off our saddles; and in 
a moment each man was kneeling at his horse's feet. 
The hobbles were adjusted, and the animals turned 
loose ; then, as the wagons came wheeling rapidly to 
the spot, we seized upon the tent-poles, and just as 
the storm broke, we were prepared to receive it. It 
came upon us almost Vv'ith the darkness of night: 
the trees, which were close at hand, were completely 
shrouded by the roaring torrents of rain. 

We were sitting in the tent when Deslauriers, 
with his broad felt hat hanging about his ears, and 



THE "BIG BLUE." 57 

his shoulders glistening with rain, thrust in his 
head. 

"Voulez-vous du souper, tout de suite? I can 
make fire, sous la chare tte — I b'lieve so — I try." 

" Never mind supper, man ; come in out of the rain. " 

Deslauriers accordingly crouched in the entrance, 
for modesty would not permit him to intrude 
farther. 

Our tent was none of the best defence against 
such a cataract. The rain could not enter bodily, 
but it beat through the canvas in a fine drizzle, that 
wetted us just as effectually. We sat upon our 
saddles with faces of the utmost surliness, while tlie 
water dropped from the visors of our caps, and 
trickled down our cheeks. My india-rubber cloak 
conducted twenty little rapid streamlets to the 
ground; and Shaw's blanket coat was saturated like 
a sponge. But what most concerned us was the 
sight of several puddles of water rapidly accumulat- 
ing; one, in particular, that was gathering around 
the tent-pole, threatened to overspread the whole 
area within the tent, holding forth but an indifferent 
promise of a comfortable night's rest. Towards 
sunset, however, the storm ceased as suddenly as it 
began. A bright streak of clear red sky appeared 
above the western verge of the prairie, the horizontal 
rays of the sinking sun streamed through it, and 
glittered in a thousand prismatic colors upon the 
dripping groves and the prostrate grass. The pools 
in the tent dwindled and sunk into the saturated soil. 



58 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

But all our hopes were delusive. Scarcely had 
night set in when the tumult broke forth anew. 
The thunder here is not like the tame thunder of the 1 1 

Atlantic coast. Bursting with a terrific crash directly 
above our heads, it roared over the boundless waste 
of prairie, seeming to roll around the whole circle of 
the firmament with a peculiar and awful reverbera- 
tion. The lightning flashed all night, playing with 
its livid glare upon the neighboring trees, revealing 
the vast expanse of the plain, and then leaving us 
shut in as if by a palpable wall of darkness. 

It did not disturb us much. Now and then a peal 
awakened us, and made us conscious of the electric 
battle that was raging, and of the floods that dashed 
upon the stanch canvas over our heads. We lay 
upon india-rubber cloths, placed between our blankets 
and the soil. For a while they excluded the water 
to admiration; but when at length it accumulated 
and began to run over the edges, they served equally 
well to retain it, so that towards the end of the 
night we were unconsciously reposing in small pools 
of rain. 

On finally awaking in the morning the prospect 
was not a cheerful one. The rain no longer poured 
in torrents ; but it pattered with a quiet pertinacity 
upon the strained and saturated canvas. We disen- 
gaged ourselves from our blankets, every fibre of 
which glistened with little bead-like drops of water, 
and looked out in the vain hope of discovering some 
token of fair weather. The clouds, in lead-colored 



THE "BIG BLUE." 59 

volumes, rested upon the dismal verge of the prairie, 
or hung sluggishly overhead, while the earth wore 
an aspect no more attractive than the heavens, exhibit- 
ing nothing but pools of water, grass beaten down, 
and mud well trampled by our mules and horses. 
Our companions' tent, with an air of forlorn and 
passive misery, and their wagons in like manner 
drenched and woe-begone, stood not far off. The 
captain was just returning from his morning's inspec- 
tion of the horses. He stalked through the mist and 
rain, with his plaid around his shoulders, his little pipe, 
dingy as an antiquarian relic, projecting from beneath 
his moustache, and his brother Jack at his heels. 

At noon the sky was clear, and we set out, trailing 
through mud and slime six inches deep. That night 
we were spared the customary infliction of the shower- 
bath. 

On the next afternoon we were moving slowly 
along, not far from a patch of woods which lay on 
the right. Jack C rode a little in advance, — 

" The livelong day he had not spoke ; " 

when suddenly he faced about, pointed to the woods, 
and roared out to his brother, — 

"O Bill! here's a cow." 

The captain instantly galloped forward, and he 
and Jack made a vain attempt to capture the prize ; 
but the cow, with a well-grounded distrust of 

their intentions, took refuge among the trees. R 

joined them, and they soon drove her out. We watched 



60 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

their evolutions as they galloped around her, trying 
in vain to noose her with their trail-ropes, which 
they had converted into lariettes for the occasion. 
At length they resorted to milder measures, and the 
cow was driven along with the party. Soon after 
the usual thunder-storm came up, the wind blowing 
with such fury that the streams of rain flew almost 
horizontally along the prairie, roaring like a cataract. 
The horses turned tail to the storm, and stood hang- 
ing their heads, bearing the infliction with an air of 
meekness and resignation; while we drew our heads 
between our shoulders, and crouched forward, so as 
to make our backs serve as a pent-house for the rest 
of our persons. Meanwhile the cow, taking advan- 
tage of the tumult, ran off, to the great discomfiture 
of the captain. In defiance of the storm, he pulled 
his cap tight over his brows, jerked a huge buffalo- 
pistol from his holster, and set out at full speed after 
her. This was the last we saw of them for some 
time, the mist and rain making an impenetrable veil, 
but at length we heard the captain's shout, and saw 
him looming through the tempest, the picture of a 
Hibernian cavalier, with his cocked pistol held aloft 
for safety's sake, and a countenance of anxiety and 
excitement. The cow trotted before him, but ex- 
hibited evident signs of an intention to run off again, 
and the captain was roaring to us to head her. But 
the rain had got in behind our coat-collars, and was 
travelling over our necks ia numerous little stream- 
lets, and being afraid to move our heads, for fear of 



THE "BIG BLUE." 61 

admitting more, we sat stiff and immovable, looking 
at the captain askance, and laughing at his frantic 
movements. At last the cow made a sudden plunge 
and ran off; the captain grasped his pistol firmly, 
spurred his horse, and galloped after, with evident 
designs of mischief. In a moment we heard the 
faint report, deadened by the rain, and then the con- 
queror and his victim reappeared, the latter shot 
through the body, and quite helpless. Not long 
after, the storm moderated, and we advanced again. 
The cow walked painfully along under the charge of 
Jack, to whom the captain had committed her, while 
he himself rode forward in his old capacity of vidette. 
We were approaching a long line of trees, that fol- 
lowed a stream stretching across our path, far in 
front, when we beheld the vidette galloping towards 
us apparently much excited, but with a broad grin 
on his face. 

"Let that cow drop behind!" he shouted to us; 
"here's her owners." 

And, in fact, as we approached the line of trees, 
a large white object, like a tent, was visible behind 
them. On approaching, however, we found, instead 
of the expected Mormon camp, nothing but the lonely 
prairie, and a large white rock standing by the path. 
The cow, therefore, resumed her place in our proces- 
sion. She walked on until we encamped, when R , 

approaching with his English double-barrelled rifle, 
took aim at her heart, and discharged into it first one 
bullet and then the other. She was then butchered 



62 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

on the most approved principles of woodcraft, and 
furnished a very welcome item to our somewhat 
limited bill of fare. 

In a day or two more we reached the river called 
the "Big Blue." By titles equally elegant, almost 
all the streams of this region are designated. We 
had struggled through ditches and little brooks all 
that morning; but on traversing the dense woods 
that lined the banks of the Blue, we found that more 
formidable difficulties awaited us, for the stream, 
swollen by the rains, was wide, deep, and rapid. 

No sooner were we on the spot than R flung 

off his clothes, and swam across, or splashed through 
the shallows, with the end of a rope between his 
teeth. We all looked on in admiration, wondering 
what might be the object of this energetic prepara- 
tion; but soon we heard him shouting: "Give that 
rope a turn round that stump. You, Sorel ; do you 
hear? Look sharp, now, Boisverd. Come over to 
this side, some of you, and help me." The men to 
whom these orders were directed paid not the least 
attention to them, though they were poured out 
without pause or intermission. Henry Chatillon 
directed the work, and it proceeded quietly and 

rapidly. R 's sharp brattling voice might have 

been heard incessantly; and he was leaping about 
with the utmost activity. His commands were 
rather amusingly inconsistent; for when he saw that 
the men would not do as he told them, he accommo- 
dated himself to circumstances, and with the utmost 



THE "BIG BLUE." 63 

vehemence ordered them to do precisely that which 
they were at the time engaged npon, no doubt recol- 
lecting the story of Mahomet and the refractory 

mountain. Shaw smiled; R observed it, and, 

approaching with a countenance of indignation, began 
to vapor a little, but was instantly reduced to 
silence. 

The raft was at length complete. We piled our 
goods upon it, with the exception of our guns, which 
each man chose to retain in his own keeping. Sorel, 
Boisverd, Wright, and Deslauriers took their stations 
at the four corners, to hold it together, and swim 
across with it; and in a moment more all our earthly 
possessions were floating on the turbid waters of the 
Big Blue. We sat on the bank, anxiously watching 
the result, until we saw the raft safe landed in a 
little cove far down on the opposite bank. The 
empty wagons were easily passed across; and then, 
each man mounting a horse, we rode through the 
stream, the stray animals following of their own 
accord. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 

We were now at the end of our solitary journey- 
ings along the St. Joseph trail. On the evening of 
the twenty-third of May we encamped near its junc • 
tion with the old legitimate trail of the Oregon emi- 
grants. We had ridden long that afternoon, trjdng 
in vam to find wood and water, until at length we 
saw the sunset sky reflected from a pool encircled by 
bushes and rocks. The water lay in the bottom of 
a hollow, the smooth prairie gracefully rising in 
ocean-like swells on every side. We pitched our 
tents by it; not, however, before the keen eye of 
Henry Chatillon had discerned some unusual object 
upon the faintly-defined outline of the distant swell. 
But in the moist, hazy atmosphere of the evening, 
nothing could be clearly distinguished. As we lay 
around the fire after supper, a low and distant sound, 
strange enough amid the loneliness of the prairie, 
reached our ears, — peals of laughter, and the faint 
voices of men and women. For eight days we had 
not encountered a human being, and this singular 
warning of their vicinity had an effect extremely 
impressive. 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 65 

About dark a sallow-faced fellow descended the 
hill on horseback, and splashing through the pool, 
rode up to the tents. He was enveloped in a huge 
cloak, and his broad felt hat was weeping about his 
ears with the drizzling moisture of the evening. 
Another followed, a stout, square-built, intelligent- 
looking man, who announced himself as leader of an 
emigrant party, encamped a mile in advance of us. 
About twenty wagons, he said, were with him ; the 
rest of his party were on the other side of the Big 
Blue, waiting for a woman who was in the pains 
of childbirth, and quarrelling meanwhile among 
themselves. 

These were the first emigrants that we had over- 
taken, although we had found abundant and melan- 
choly traces of their progress throughout the course 
of the journey. Sometimes we passed the grave of 
one who had sickened and died on the way. The 
earth was usually torn ujd, and covered thickly with 
wolf-tracks. Some had escaped this violation. One 
morning, a piece of plank, standing upright on the 
summit of a grassy hill, attracted our notice, and 
riding up to it, we found the following words very 
roughly traced upon it, apparently with a red-hot 
piece of iron : — 

MARY ELLIS. 
Died May 7tli, 1845. 

AGED TWO MONTHS. 

Such tokens were of common occurrence. 

We were late in breaking up our camp on the fol- 



66 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

lowing morning, and scarcely had we ridden a mile 
when we saw, far in advance of us, drawn against 
the horizon, a line of objects stretching at regular 
intervals along the level edge of the prairie. An 
intervening swell soon hid them from sight, until, 
ascending it a quarter of an hour after, we saw close 
before us the emigrant caravan, with its heavy white 
wagons creeping on in slow procession, and a large 
drove of cattle following behind. Half a dozen yel- 
low-visaged Missourians, mounted on horseback, were 
cursing and shouting among them, their lank angular 
proportions enveloped in brown homespun, evidently 
cut and adjusted by the hands of a domestic female 
tailor. As we approached, they called out to us: 
"How are ye, boys? Are ye for Oregon or 
California?" 

As we pushed rapidly by the wagons, children's 
faces were thrust out from the white coverings to 
look at us ; while the care-worn, thin-featured matron, 
or the buxom girl, seated in front, suspended the 
knitting on which most of them were engaged to 
stare at us with wondering curiosity. By the side of 
each wagon stalked the proprietor, urging on his 
patient oxen, who shouldered heavily along, inch by 
inch, on their interminable journey. It was easy to 
see that fear and dissension prevailed among them ; 
some of the men — but these, with one exception, 
were bachelors — looked wistfully upon us as we 
rode lightly and swiftly by, and then impatiently at 
their own lumbering wagons and heavy-gaited oxen. 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 67 

Others were unwilling to advance at all, until the 
party they had left behind should have rejoined them. 
Many were murmuring against the leader they had 
chosen, and wished to depose him ; and this discon- 
tent was fomented by some ambitious spirits, who 
had hopes of succeeding in his place. The women 
were divided between regrets for the homes they had 
left and fear of the deserts and savages before them. 

We soon left them far behind, and hoped that Ave 
had taken a final leave; but our companions' wagon 
stuck so long in a deep muddy ditch that before it 
was extricated the van of the emigrant caravan ap- 
peared again, descending a ridge close at hand. 
Wagon after wagon plunged through the mud ; and 
as it was nearly noon, and the place promised shade 
and water, we saw with satisfaction that they were 
resolved to encamp. Soon the wagons were wheeled 
into a circle: the cattle were grazing over the 
meadow, and the men, with sour, sullen faces, were 
looking about for wood and water. They seemed to 
meet but indifferent success. As we left the ground, 
I saw a tall, slouching fellow, with the nasal accent of 
"down east," contemplating the contents of his tin 
cup, which he had just filled with water. 

"Look here, you," said he; "it's chock-full of 
animals ! " 

The cup, as he held it out, exhibited in fact an 
extraordinary variety and profusion of animal and 
vegetable life. 

Riding up the little hill, and looking back on the 



68 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

meadow, we could easily see that all was not right in 
the camp of the emigrants. The men were crowded 
together, and an angry discussion seemed to be going 

forward. R was missing from his wonted place 

in the line, and the captain told us that he had re- 
mained behind to get his horse shod by a blacksmith 
attached to the emigrant party. Something whispered 
in our ears that mischief was on foot; we kept on, 
however, and coming soon to a stream of tolerable 
water, we stopped to rest and dine. vStill the absentee 
lingered behind. At last, at the distance of a mile, 
he and his horse suddenly appeared, sharply defined 
against the sky on the summit of a hill; and close 
behind, a huge white object rose slowly into view. 
" What is that blockhead bringing with him now ? " 
A moment dispelled the mystery. Slowly and 
solemnly, one behind the other, four long trains of 
oxen and four emigrant wagons rolled over the crest 

of the hill and gravely descended, while R rode 

in state in the van. It seems that, during the process 
of shoeing the horse, the smothered dissensions among 
the emigrants suddenly broke into open rupture. 
Some insisted on pushing forward, some on remain- 
ing where they were, and some on going back. 
Kearsley, their captain, threw up his command in 
disgust. "And now, boys," said he, "if any of you 
are for going ahead, just you come along with me." 

Four wagons, with ten men, one woman, and one 
small child, made up the force of the "go-ahead" 
faction, and R , with his usual proclivity toward 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 69 

mischief, invited them to join our party. Fear of 
the Indians — for I can conceive no other motive — 
must have induced him to court so burdensome an 
alliance. At all events, the proceeding was a cool 
one. The men who joined us, it is true, were all 
that could be desired; rude indeed in manners, but 
frank, manly, and intelligent. To tell them we 
could not travel with them was out of the question. 
I merely reminded Kearsley that if his oxen could 
not keep up with our mules he must expect to be 
left behind, as we could not consent to be farther 
delayed on the journey; but he immediately replied, 
that his oxen ''''should keep up; and if they couldn't, 
why, he allowed, he 'd find out how to make 'em." 

On the next day, as it chanced, our English 
companions broke the axle-tree of their wagon, and 
down came the whole cumbrous machine lumbering 
into the bed of a brook. Here was a day's work cut 
out for us. Meanwhile our emigrant associates kept 
on their way, and so vigorously did they urge for- 
ward their powerful oxen, that, what with the broken 
axle-tree and other mishaps, it was full a week before 
we overtook them; when at length we discovered 
them, one afternoon, crawling quietly along the 
sandy brink of the Platte. But meanwhile various 
incidents occurred to ourselves. 

It was probable that at this stage of our journey 
the Pawnees would attempt to rob us. We began 
therefore to stand guard in turn, dividing the night 
into three watches, and appointing two men for each, 



70 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Deslauriera and I held guard together. We did not 
march with military precision to and fro before the 
tents : our discipline was by no means so strict. We 
wrapped ourselves in our blankets, and sat down by 
the fire; and Deslauriers, combining his culinary 
functions with his duties as sentinel, employed him- 
self in boiling the head of an antelope for our break- 
fast. Yet we were models of vigilance in comparison 
with some of the party; for the ordinary practice of 
the guard was to lay his rifle on the ground, and, en- 
veloping his nose in his blanket, meditate on his mis- 
tress, or whatever subject best pleased him. This is all 
well enough when among Indians who do not habitu- 
ally proceed further in their hostility than robbing 
travellers of their horses and mules, though, indeed, 
a Pawnee's forbearance is not always to be trusted; 
but in certain regions farther to the west, the guard 
must beware how he exposes his person to the light 
of the fire, lest some keen-eyed skulking marksman 
should let fly a bullet or an arrow from the darkness. 
Among various tales that circulated around our 
camp-fire was one told by Boisverd, and not inappro- 
priate here. He was trapping with several com- 
panions on the skirts of the Blackfoot country. The 
man on guard, knowing that it behooved him to 
put forth his utmost precaution, kept aloof from the 
fu-e-light, and sat watching intently on all sides. At 
length he was aware of a dark, crouching figure, 
stealing noiselessly into the circle of the light. He 
hastily cocked his rifle, but the sharp click of the 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 71 

lock caught the ear of the Blackfoot, Avhose senses 
were all on the alert. Raising his arrow, already 
fitted to the string, he shot it in the direction of the 
sound. So sure was his aim, that he drove it through 
the throat of the unfortunate guard, and then, with 
a loud yell, bounded from the camp. 

As I looked at the partner of my watch, puffing 
and blomng over his fire, it occurred to me that he 
might not prove the most efficient auxiliary in time 
of trouble. 

" Deslauriers, " said I, "would you run away if the 
Pawnees should fire at us?" 

"Ah! oui, oui. Monsieur!" he replied veiy de- 
cisively. 

At this instant a whimsical variety of voices, — 
barks, howls, yelps, and whines, — all mingled to- 
gether, sounded from the prairie, not far off, as if 
a conclave of wolves of every age and sex were 
assembled there. Deslauriers looked up from his 
work with a laugh, and began to imitate this medley 
of sounds with a ludicrous accuracy. At this they 
were repeated with redoubled emphasis, the musician 
being apparently indignant at the successful efforts 
of a rival. They all proceeded from the throat of 
one little wolf, not larger than a spaniel, seated by 
himself at some distance. He was of the species 
called the prairie-wolf: a grim-visaged, but harmless 
little brute, whose worst propensity is creeping among 
horses and gnawing the ropes of raw hide by which 
they are picketed around the camp. Other beasts 



72 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

roam tlie prairies, far more formidable in aspect and 
in character. Tliese are the large white and gray 
wolves, whose deep howl we heard at intervals 
from far and near. 

At last I fell into a doze, and awaking from it, 
found Deslauriers fast asleep. Scandalized by this 
breach of discipline, I was about to stimulate his 
vigilance by stirring him with the stock of my rifle ; 
but, compassion prevailing, I determined to let him 
sleep awhile, and then arouse him to administer a 
suitable reproof for such forgetfulness of duty. 
Now and then I walked the rounds among the silent 
horses, to see that all was right. The night was 
chill, damp, and dark, the dank grass bending under 
the icy dewdrops. At the distance of a rod or two 
the tents were invisible, and nothing could be seen 
but the obscure figures of the horses, deeply breath- 
ing, and restlessly starting as they slept, or still 
slowly champing the grass. Far off, beyond the 
black outline of the prairie, there was a ruddy light, 
gradually increasing, like the glow of a conflagration ; 
until at length the broad disk of the moon, blood- 
red, and vastly magnified by the vapors, rose slowly 
upon the darkness, flecked by one or two little 
clouds, and as the light poured over the gloomy 
plain, a fierce and stern howl, close at hand, seemed 
to greet it as an unwelcome intruder. There was 
something impressive and awful in the place and the 
hour; for I and the beasts were all that had con- 
Bciousness for many a league around. 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. <d 

Some days elapsed, and brought us near the Platte. 
Two men on hoi-seback approached us one morning, 
and we watched them with the curiosity and interest 
that, upon the solitude of the plains, such an en- 
counter always excites. They were evidently whites, 
from their mode of riding, though, contrary to the 
usage of that region, neither of them carried a 
rifle. 

" Fools !" remarked Henry Chatillon, "to ride 
that way on the prairie ; Pawnee find them — then 
they catch it." 

Pawnee had found them, and they had come very 
near "catching it;" indeed, nothing saved them but 
the approach of our party. Shaw and I knew one 
of them, — a man named Turner, whom we had seen 
at Westport. He and his companion belonged to an 
emigrant party encamped a few miles in advance, 
and had returned to look for some stray oxen, leaving 
their rifles, with characteristic rashness or ignorance, 
behind them. Their neglect had nearly cost them 
dear ; for, just before we came up, half-a-dozen 
Indians approached, and, seeing them apparently 
defenceless, one of the rascals seized the bridle of 
Turner's horse and ordered him to dismount. Turner 
was wholly unarmed; but the other jerked a pistol 
out of his pocket, at which the Pawnee recoiled ; and 
just then some of our men appearing in the distance, 
the whole party whipped their rugged little horses 
and made off. In no way daunted, Turner foolishly 
persisted in going forward. 



74 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Long after leaving him, and late that afternoon, 
in the midst of a gloomy and barren prairie, we came 
suddenly upon the great trail of the Pawnees, lead- 
ing from their villages on the Platte to their war 
and hunting grounds to the southward. Here every 
summer passes the motley concourse: thousands of 
savages, men, women, and children, horses and mules, 
laden with their weapons and implements, and an 
innumerable multitude of unruly wolfish dogs, who 
have not acquired the civilized accomplishment of 
barking, but howl like their wild cousins of the 
prairie. 

The permanent winter villages of the Pawnees 
stand on the lower Platte, but throughout the sum- 
mer the greater part of the inhabitants are wandering 
over the plains, — a treacherous, cowardly banditti, 
who, by a thousand acts of pillage and murder, have 
deserved chastisement at the hands of government. 
Last year a Dahcotah warrior performed a notable 
exploit at one of these villages. He approached it 
alone, in the middle of a dark night, and clambering 
up the outside of one of the lodges, which are in the 
form of a half-sphere, looked in at the round hole 
made at the top for the escape of smoke. The dusky 
light from the embers showed him the forms of the 
sleeping inmates; and dropping lightly through the 
opening, he unsheathed his knife, and, stirring 
the fire, coolly selected his victims. One by one, he 
stabbed and scalped them; when a child suddenly 
awoke and screamed. He rushed from the lodge, 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 75 

yelled a Sioux war-cry, shouted his name in triumph 
and defiance, and darted out upon the dark prairie, 
leaving the whole village behind him in a tumult, 
with the howling and baying of dogs, the screams of 
women, and the yells of the enraged warriors. 

Our friend Kearsley, as we learned on rejoining 
him, signalized himself by a less bloody achievement. 
He and his men were good woodsmen, well skilled 
in the use of the rifle, but found themselves wholly 
out of their element on the prairie. None of them 
had ever seen a buffalo; and they had very vague 
conceptions of his nature and appearance. On the 
day after they reached the Platte, looking towards 
a distant swell, they beheld a multitude of little 
black specks in motion upon its surface. 

"Take your rifles, boys," said Kearsley, "and 
we '11 have fresh meat for supper." This inducement 
was quite sufficient. The ten men left their wagons, 
and set out in hot haste, some on horseback and some 
on foot^ in pursuit of the supposed buffalo. Mean- 
while a high, grassy ridge shut the game from view; 
but mounting it after half an hour's running and 
riding, they found themselves suddenly confronted 
by about thirty mounted Pawnees. Amazement and 
consternation were mutual. Having nothing but 
their bows and arrows, the Indians thought their 
hour was come, and the fate that they were con- 
scious of richly deserving about to overtake them. 
So they began, one and all, to shout forth the most 
cordial salutations, running up with extreme earnest- 



76 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ness to shake hands with the Missourians, who were 
as much rejoiced as they were to escape the expected 
conflict. 

A low, undulating hue of sand-hills bounded the 
horizon before us. That day we rode ten hours, and 
it was dusk before we entered the hollows and gorges 
of these gloomy little hills. At length we gained 
the summit, and the long-expected valley of the 
Platte lay before us. We all drew rein, and sat 
joyfully looking down upon the prospect. It was 
right welcome; strange, too, and striking to the 
imagination, and yet it had not one picturesque or 
beautiful feature; nor had it any of the features of 
grandeur, other than its vast extent, its solitude, and 
its wildness. For league after league, a plain as 
level as a lake was outspread beneath us; here and 
there the Platte, divided into a dozen thread-like 
sluices, was traversing it, and an occasional clump of 
wood, rising in the midst like a shadowy island, 
relieved the monotony of the waste. No living thing 
was moving throughout the vast landscape, except 
the lizards that darted over the sand and through 
the rank grass and prickly pears at our feet. 

We had passed the more tedious part of the jour- 
ney; but four hundred miles still intervened between 
us and Fort Laramie; and to reach that point cost 
us the travel of three more weeks. During the 
whole of this time we were passing up the middle of 
a long, narrow, sandy plain, reaching like an out- 
stretched belt nearly to the Rocky Mountains. Two 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 77 

lines of sancl-hills, broken often into the wildest and 
most fantastic forms, flanked the valley at the dis- 
tance of a mile or two on the right and left; while 
beyond them lay a barren, trackless waste, extending 
for hundreds of miles to the Arkansas on the one 
side, and the Missouri on the other. Before and 
behind ns, the level monotony of the plain was 
unbroken as far as the eye could reach. Sometimes 
it glared in the sun, an expanse of hot, bare sand ; 
sometimes it was veiled by long coarse grass. Skulls 
and whitening bones of buffalo were scattered every- 
where ; the ground was tracked by myriads of them, 
and often covered with the circular indentations 
where the bulls had wallowed in the hot weather. 
From every gorge and ravine, opening from the hills, 
descended deep, well-worn paths, where the buffalo 
issue twice a day in regular procession to drink in 
the Platte. The river itself runs through the midst, 
a thin sheet of rapid, turbid water, half a mile wide, 
and scarcely two feet deep. Its low banks, for the 
most part without a bush or a tree, are of loose sand, 
with which the stream is so charged that it grates on 
the teeth in drinking. The naked landscape is, of 
itself, dreary and monotonous enough; and yet the 
wild beasts and wild men that frequent the valley of 
the Platte make it a scene of interest and excite- 
ment to the traveller. Of those who have journeyed 
there, scarcely one, perhaps, fails to look back with 
fond resrret to his horse and his rifle. 

Early in the morning after we reached the Platte, 



78 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

a long procession of squalid savages approached our 
camp. Each was on foot, leading his horse by a 
rope of bull-hide. His attire consisted merely of a 
scanty cincture, and an old buffalo robe, tattered and 
begrimed by use, which hung over his shoulders. 
His head was close shaven, except a ridge of hair 
reaching over the crown from the middle of the fore- 
head, very much like the long bristles on the back 
of a hyena, and he carried his bow and arrows in his 
hand, while his meagre little horse was laden with 
dried buffalo meat, the produce of his hunting. Such 
were the first specimens that we met — and very 
indifferent ones they were — of the genuine savages 
of the prairie. 

They were the Pawnees whom Kearsley had 
encountered the day before, and belonged to a large 
hunting-party, known to be ranging the prairie in the 
vicinity. They strode rapidly by, within a furlong 
of our tents, not pausing or looking towards us, after 
the manner of Indians when meditating mischief, or 
conscious of ill desert. I went out to meet them, 
and had an amicable conference with the chief, pre- 
senting him with half a pound of tobacco, at which 
unmerited bounty he expressed much gratification. 
These fellows, or some of their companions, had 
committed a dastardly outrage upon an emigrant 
party in advance of us. Two men, at a distance 
from the rest, were seized by them, but, lasliing 
their horses, they broke away and fled. At this the 
Pawnees raised the yell and shot at them, transfixing 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 79 

the ]iindmost through the hack with several arrows, 
while his companion galloped away and hrought in 
the news to his party. The panic-stricken emigrants 
remained for several days in camp, not daring even 
to send out in quest of the dead body. 

Our New-England climate is mild and equable 
compared with that of the Platte. This very morn- 
ing, for instance, was close and sultry, the sun rising 
with a faint oppressive heat; when suddenly darkness 
gathered in the west, and a furious blast of sleet and 
hail drove full in our faces, icy cold, and urged with 
such demoniac vehemence that it felt like a storm of 
needles. It was curious to see the horses; they 
faced about in extreme displeasure, holding their 
tails like whipped dogs, and shivering as the angry 
gusts, howling louder than a concert of wolves, 
swept over us. Wright's long train of mules came 
sweeping round before the storm, like a flight of 
snow-birds driven by a winter tempest. Thus we 
all remained stationary for some minutes, crouching 
close to our horses' necks, much too surly to speak, 
though once the captain looked up from between the 
collars of his coat, his face blood-red, and the muscles 
of his mouth contracted by the cold into a most ludi- 
crous grin of agony. He grumbled something that 
sounded like a curse, directed, as we believed, against 
the unhappy hour when he had first thought of 
leaving home. The thing was too good to last long; 
and the instant the puffs of wind subsided we pitched 
our tents, and remained in camp for the rest of a 



80 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

gloomy and lowering day. The emigrants also en- 
camped near at hand. We being first on the ground, 
had appropriated all the wood within reach; so that 
our fire alone blazed cheerily. Around it soon gath- 
ered a group of uncouth figures, shivering in the 
drizzling rain. Consj^icuous among them were two 
or three of the half-savage men who spend their reck- 
less lives in trapping among the Rocky Mountains, 
or in trading for the Fur Company in the Indian 
villages. They were all of Canadian extraction; 
their hard, weather-beaten faces and bushy mous- 
taches looked out from beneath the hoods of their 
white capotes with a bad and brutish expression, as 
if their owners might be the willing agents of any 
villany. And such in fact is the character of many 
of these men. 

On the day following we overtook Kearsley's 
wagons, and thenceforward, for a week or two, we 
were fellow-travellers. One good effect, at least, 
resulted from the alliance; it materially diminished 
the fatigues of standing guard; for the party being 
now more numerous, there were longer intervals 
between each man's turns of duty. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE BUFFALO. 

Four days on the Platte, and yet no buffalo ! Last 
year's signs of them were provokingly abundant ; and 
wood being extremely scarce, we found an admirable 
substitute in the hois de vache, which burns like peat, 
producing no unpleasant effects. The wagons one 
morning had left the camp; Shaw and I were already 
on horseback, but Henry Chatillon still sat cross- 
legged by the dead embers of the fire, playing pen- 
sively with the lock of his rifle, while his sturdy 
Wyandot pony stood quietly behind him, looking 
over his head. At last he got up, patted the neck of 
the pony (which, from an exaggerated appreciation 
of his merits, he had christened "Five Hundred 
Dollar"), and then mounted, with a melancholy 
air. 

"What is it, Henry?" 

"Ah, I feel lonesome; I never been here before 
but I see away yonder over the buttes, and down 
there on the prairie, black — all black with buffalo." 

In the afternoon he and I left the party in search 
of an antelope, until, at the distance of a mile or 
two on the right, the tall white wagons and the little 

6 



82 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

black specks of horsemen were just visible, so slowlj' 
advancing that they seemed motionless; and far on 
the left rose the broken line of scorched, desolate 
sand-hills. The vast plain waved with tall rank grass, 
that swept our horses' bellies; it swayed to and fro 
in billows with the light breeze, and far and near 
antelope and wolves were moving through it, the 
hairy backs of the latter alternately appearing and 
disappearing as they bounded awkwardly along; 
while the antelope, with the simple curiosity peculiar 
to them, would often approach us closely, their little 
horns and white throats just visible above the grass- 
tops, as they gazed eagerly at us with their round 
black eyes. 

I dismounted, and amused myself with firing at the 
wolves. Henry attentively scrutinized the surround- 
ing landscape ; at length he gave a shout, and called 
on me to mount again, pointing in the direction of 
the sand-hills. A mile and a half from us two black 
specks slowly traversed the bare glaring face of one 
of them, and disappeared behind the summit. " Let 
us go! " cried Henr}-, belaboring the sides of "Five 
Hundred Dollar;" and I following in his wake, we 
galloped rapidly through the rank grass toward the 
base of the hills. 

From one of their openings descended a deep 
ravine, widening as it issued on the prairie. We 
entered it, and galloping up, in a moment were sur- 
rounded by the bleak sand-hills. Half of their steep 
sides were bare ; the rest were scantily clothed with 



THE BUFFALO. 83 

chimps of grass, and various uncouth plants, con- 
spicuous among which appeared the rcptile-hke 
prickly-pear. They were gashed with numberless 
ravines ; and as the sky had suddenly darkened, and 
a cold gusty wind arisen, the strange shrubs and the 
dreary hills looked doubly wild and desolate. But 
Henry's face was all eagerness. He tore off a little 
hair from the piece of buffalo-robe under his saddle, 
and threw it up, to show the course of the wind. It 
blew directly before us. The game were therefore to 
leeward, and it was necessary to make our best 
speed to get round them. 

We scrambled from this ravine, and, galloping 
away through the hollows, soon found another, wind- 
ing like a snake among the hills, and so deep that it 
completely concealed us. We rode up the bottom of 
it, glancing through the bushes at its edge, till 
Henry abruptly jerked his rein, and slid out of his 
saddle. Full a quarter of a mile distant, on the out- 
line of the farthest hill, a long procession of buffalo 
were walking, in Indian file, with the utmost gravity 
and deliberation ; then more appeared, clambering 
from a hollow not far off, and ascending, one behind 
the other, the grassy slope of another hill; then a 
shaggy head and a pair of short broken horns issued 
out of a ravine close at hand, and with a slow, stately 
stej^, one by one, the enormous brutes came into 
view, taking their way across the valley, wholly 
unconscious of an enemy. In a moment Henry was 
worming his way, lying flat on the ground, through 



84 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

grass and prickly-pears, towards liis unsuspecting 
victims. He had with him both my rifle and his 
own. He was soon out of sight, and still the buffalo 
kept issuing into the valley. For a long time all was 
silent; I sat holding his horse, and wondering what 
he was about, when suddenly, in rapid succession, 
came the sharp reports of the two rifles, and the whole 
line of buffalo, quickening their pace into a clumsy 
trot, gradually disappeared over the ridge of the hill. 
Henry rose to his feet, and stood looking after them. 

"You have missed them," said I. 

"Yes," said Henry; "let us go." He descended 
into the ravine, loaded the rifles, and mounted his 
horse. 

We rode up the hill after the buffalo. The herd 
was out of sight when w^e reached the top, but Ijdng 
on the grass, not far off, was one quite lifeless, and 
another violently struggling in the death-agony. 

"You see I miss him! " remarked Henry. He had 
fired from a distance of more than a hundred and 
fifty yards, and both balls had passed through the 
lungs, the true mark in shooting buffalo. 

The darkness increased, and a driving storm came 
on. Tying our horses to the horns of the victims, 
Henry began the bloody work of dissection, slashing 
away -with the science of a connoisseur, while I 
vainly tried to imitate him. Old Hendrick recoiled 
with horror and indignation when I endeavored to tie 
the meat to the strings of raw hide, always carried 
for this purpose, dangling at the back of the saddle. 



THE BUFFALO. 85 

After some difficult}'- we overcame his scruples ; and, 
heavily burdened with the more eligible portions of 
the buffalo, we set out on our return. Scarcely had 
we emerged from the labyrinth of gorges and ravines, 
and issued upon the open prairie, when the prickling 
sleet came driving, gust upon gust, directly in our 
faces. It was strangely dark, though wanting still 
an hour of sunset. The freezing storm soon pene- 
trated to the skin, but the uneasy trot of our heavy- 
gaited horses kept us warm enough, as we forced 
them unwillingly in the teeth of the sleet and rain, 
by the powerful suasion of our Indian whips. The 
prairie in this place was hard and level. A flourish- 
ing colony of prairie-dogs had burrowed into it in 
every direction, and the little mounds of fresh earth 
around their holes were about as numerous as the 
hills in a cornfield ; but not a yelp was to be heard ; 
not the nose of a single citizen was visible ; all had 
retired to the depths of their burrows, and we envied 
them their dry and comfortable habitations. An 
hour's hard riding showed us our tent dimly looming 
through the storm, one side puffed out by the force 
of the wind, and the other collapsed in proportion, 
while the disconsolate horses stood shivering close 
around, and the wind kept up a dismal whistling in 
the boughs of three old half-dead trees above. Shaw, 
like a patriarch, sat on his saddle in the entrance, 
with a pipe in his mouth and his arms folded, con- 
templating, with cool satisfaction, the piles of meat 
that we flung on the ground before him. A dark 



86 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and dreary night succeeded ; but the sun rose, with a 
heat so sultry and languid that the captain excused 
himself on that account from waylaying an old 
buffalo bull, who with stujiid gravity was walking 
over the prairie to drink at the river. So much for 
the climate of the Platte. 

But it was not the weather alone that had produced 
this sudden abatement of the sportsman -like zeal 
which the captain had always professed. He had 
been out on the afternoon before, together with 
several members of his party ; but tlieir hunting was 
attended with no other result than the loss of one of 
their best horses, severely injured by Sorel, in vainly 
chasing a wounded bull. The captain, whose ideas 
of hard riding were all derived from transatlantic 
sources, expressed the utmost amazement at the feats 
of Sorel, who went leaping ravines, and dashing at 
full speed up and down the sides of precipitous hills, 
lashing his horse with the recklessness of a Rocky 
Mountain rider. Unfortunately for the poor animal, 

he was the property of R , against whom Sorel 

entertained an unbounded aversion. The captain 
himself, it seemed, had also attempted to "run" a 
buffalo, bat though a good and practised horseman, 
he had soon given over the attempt, being astonished 
and utterly disgusted at the nature of the ground he 
was required to ride over. 

" Here 's old Papin and Frederic, down from Fort 
Laramie," shouted Henry, as we returned from a 
reconnoitring tour on the next morning. We had 



THE BUFFALO. 87 

for some days expected this encounter. Papin was 
the bourgeois^ or ""boss," of Fort Laramie. He had 
come down the river with the buffalo-robes and the 
beaver, the produce of the last winter's trading. I 
had among our baggage a letter which I wished to 
commit to their hands ; so requesting Henry to detain 
the boats if he could until my return, I set out after 
the wagons. They were about four miles in advance. 
In half an hour I overtook them, got the letter, 
trotted back upon the trail, and looking carefully, as 
I rode, saAV a patch of broken storm-blasted trees, 
and, moving near them, some little black specks like 
men and horses. Arriving at the place, I found a 
strange assembly. The boats, eleven in number, deep- 
laden with the skins, hugged close to the shore, to 
escape being borne down by the swift current. The 
rowers, swarthy ignoble Mexicans, turned their 
brutish faces upwards to look, as I reached the bank. 
Papin sat in the middle of one of the boats, upon the 
canvas covering that protected the cargo. He was a 
stout, robust fellow, with a little gray eye, that had a 
peculiarly sly twinkle. "Frederic," also, stretched 
his tall raw-boned proportions close by the bourgeois, 
and " mountain men " completed the group : some 
lounging in the boats, some strolling on shore ; some 
attired in gayly-painted buffalo robes, like Indian 
dandies; some with hair saturated with red paint, 
and plastered with glue to their temples; and one 
bedaubed with vermilion upon the forehead and each 
cheek. They were a mongrel race; yet the French 



88 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

blood seemed to predominate : in a few, indeed, might 
be seen the black snaky eye of the Indian half-breed, 
and, one and all, they seemed to aim at assimilating 
themselves to their red associates. 

I shook hands with the lom'geois, and delivered 
the letter; then the boats swung round into the 
stream and floated away. They had reason for 
haste, for already the voyage from Fort Laramie had 
occupied a full month, and the river was growing 
daily more shallow. Fifty times a day the boats had 
been aground ; indeed, those who navigate the Platte 
invariably spend half their time upon sand-bars. 
Two of these boats, the property of private traders, 
afterwards separating from the rest, got hopelessly 
involved in the shallows, not very far from the 
Pawnee villages, and were soon surrounded by a 
swarm of the inhabitants. They carried off every- 
thing that they thought valuable, including most of 
the robes; and amused themselves by tying up the 
men left on guard, and soundly whipping them with 
sticks. 

We encamped that night upon the bank of the 
river. Among the emigrants was an overgrown boy, 
some eighteen years old, with a head as round and 
about as large as a pumpkin, and fever-and-ague fits 
had dyed his face of a corresponding color. He wore 
an old white hat, tied under his chin with a hand- 
kerchief ; his body was short and stout, but his legs 
were of disproportioned and appalling length. I 
observed him at sunset, breasting the hill with 



THE BUFFALO. 89 

gigantic strides, and standing against the sky on the 
summit, like a colossal pair of tongs. In a moment 
after we heard him screaming frantically behind the 
ridge, and nothing doubting that he was in the 
clutches of Indians or grizzly bears, some of the party 
caught up their rifles and ran to the rescue. His 
outcries, however, were but an ebullition of joyous 
excitement; he had chased two wolf pups to their 
burrow, and was on his knees, grubbing away like a 
dog at the mouth of the hole, to get at them. 

Before morning he caused more serious disquiet in 
the camp. It was his turn to hold the middle-guard ; 
but no sooner was he called up than he coolly ar- 
ranged a pair of saddle-bags under a wagon, laid his 
head upon them, closed his eyes, opened his mouth, 
and fell asleep. The guard on our side of the camp, 
thinking it no part of his duty to look after the cattle 
of the emigrants, contented himself with watching 
our own horses and mules ; the wolves, he said, were 
unusually noisy ; but still no mischief was anticipated 
until the sun rose, when not a hoof or horn was in 
sight. The cattle were gone. While Tom was 
quietly slumbering, the wolves had driven them 
away. 

Then we reaped the fruits of R 's precious plan 

of travelling in company with emigrants. To leave 
them in their distress was not to be thought of, and 
we felt bound to wait until the cattle could be 
searched for, and, if possible, recovered. But the 
reader may be curious to know what punishment 



90 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

awaited the faithless Tom. By the wholesome law 
of the prairie, he who falls asleep on guard is con- 
demned to walk all day, leading his horse by the 
bridle; and we found much fault with our com- 
panions for not enforcing such a sentence on the 
offender. Nevertheless, had he been of our own 
party, I have no doubt that he would in like manner 
have escaped scot-free. But the emigrants went 
farther than mere forbearance : they decreed that since 
Tom couldn't stand guard without falling asleep, he 
shouldn't stand guard at all, and henceforward his 
slumbers were unbroken. Establishing such a pre- 
mium on drowsiness could have no very beneficial 
effect upon the vigilance of our sentinels; for it is 
far from agreeable, after riding from sunrise to sun- 
set, to feel youi' slumbers interrupted by the butt of 
a rifle nudging your side, and a sleepy voice growling 
in your ear that you must get up, to shiver and freeze 
for three weary hours at midnight. 

"Buffalo! buffalo!" It was but a grim old bull, 
roaming the prairie by himself in misanthroj)ic seclu- 
sion; but there might be more behind the hills. 
Dreading the monotony and languor of the camp, 
Shaw and I saddled our horses, buckled our holsters 
in their places, and set out with Henry Chatillon in 
search of the game. Henry, not intending to take part 
in the chase, but merely conducting us, carried his rifle 
with him, while we left ours behind as encumbrances. 
We rode for some five or six miles, and saw no liv- 
ing thing but wolves, snakes, and prairie-dogs. 



THE BUFFALO. 91 

"This won't do at all," said Shaw. 

"What won't do?" 

"There 's no wood about here to make a litter for 
the wounded man : I have an idea that one of us will 
need something of the sort before the day is over." 

There was some foundation for such an idea, for 
the ground was none of the best for a race, and grew 
worse continually as we proceeded; indeed, it soon 
became desperately bad, consisting of abrupt hills 
and deep hollov»^s, cut by frequent ravines not easy 
to pass. At length, a mile in advance, we saw a band 
of bulls. Some were scattered grazing over a green 
declivity, while the rest were crowded together in the 
wide hollow below. Making a circuit, to keep out of 
sight, we rode towards them, until we ascended a 
hill, within a furlong of them, beyond which nothing 
intervened that could possibly screen us from their 
view. We dismounted behind the ridge, just out of 
sight, drew our saddle-girths, examined our pistols, 
and mounting again, rode over the hill, and descended 
at a canter towards them, bending close to our horses' 
necks. Instantly they took the alarm: those on the 
hill descended, those below gathered into a mass, 
and the whole got into motion, shouldering each 
other along at a clumsy gallop. We followed, 
spurring our horses to full speed; and as the herd 
rushed, crowding and trampling in terror through an 
opening in the hills, we were close at their heels, half 
suffocated by the clouds of dust. But as we drew 
near, their alarm and speed increased; our horses, 



92 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

being new to the work, showed signs of the utmost 
fear, bounding violently aside as we approached, and 
refusing to enter among the herd. The buffalo now 
broke into several small bodies, scampering over the 
hills in different directions, and I lost sight of Shaw ; 
neither of us knew where the other had gone. Old 
Pontiac ran like a frantic elephant up hill and down 
hill, his ponderous hoofs striking the prairie like 
sledge-hammers. He showed a curious mixture of 
eagerness and terror, straining to overtake the panic- 
stricken herd, but constantly recoiling in dismay as 
we drew near. The fugitives, indeed, offered no 
very attractive spectacle, with their shaggy manes 
and the tattered remnants of their last winter's hair 
covering their backs in irregular shreds and patches, 
and flying off in the wind as they ran. At length I 
urged my horse close behind a bull, and after trying 
in vain, by blows and spurring, to bring him along- 
side, I fired from this disadvantageous position. At 
the report Pontiac swerved so much that I was again 
thrown a little behind the game. The bullet, enter- 
ing too much in the rear, failed to disable the bull ; 
for a buffalo requires to be shot at particular points, 
or he will certainly escape. The herd ran up a hill, 
and I followed in pursuit. As Pontiac rushed head- 
long down on the other side, I saw Shaw and Henry 
descending the hollow on the right, at a leisurely gal- 
lop ; and in front, the buffalo were just disappearing 
behind the crest of the next hill, their short tails erect, 
and their hoofs twinkling through a cloud of dust. 



THE BUFFALO. 93 

At that moment I heard Shaw and Henry shouting 
to me ; but the muscles of a stronger arm than mine 
could not have checked at once the furious course of 
Pontiac, whose mouth was as insensible as leather. 
Added to this, I rode him that morning with a snaffle, 
having the day before, for the benefit of my other 
horse, unbuckled from my bridle the curb which I 
commonly used. A stronger and hardier brute never 
trod the prairie ; but the novel sight of the buffalo 
filled him with terror, and when at full speed he was 
almost incontrollable. Gaining the top of the ridge, 
I saw nothing of the buffalo ; they had all vanished 
amid the intricacies of the hills and hollows. Reload- 
ing my pistols, in the best way I could, I galloped 
on until I saw them again scuttling along at the base 
of the hill, their panic somewhat abated. Down 
went old Pontiac among them, scattering them to the 
right and left; and then we had another long chase. 
About a dozen bulls were before us, scouring over 
the hills, rushing down the declivities with tre- 
mendous weight and impetuosity, and then laboring 
with a weary gallop upward. Still Pontiac, in spite 
of spurring and beating, would not close with them. 
One bull at length fell a little behind the rest, and 
by dint of much effort, I urged my horse within six 
or eight yards of his side. His back was darkened 
with sweat : he was panting heavily, while his tongue 
lolled out a foot from his jaws. Gradually I came 
up abreast of him, urging Pontiac with leg and rein 
nearer to his side, when suddenly he did what buffalo 



94 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

in such circumstances will always do: he slackened 
his gallop, and turning towiu^ds us, with an aspect of 
mingled rage and distress, lowered his huge, shaggy 
head for a charge. Pontiac, with a snort, leaped 
aside in terror, nearly throwing me to the ground, as 
I was wholly unprepared for such an evolution. I 
raised my pistol in a passion to strike him on the 
head, but thinking better of it, fired the bullet after 
the bull, who had resumed his flight ; then drew rein, 
and determined to rejoin my companions. It was 
high time. The breath blew hard from Pontiac's 
nostrils, and the sweat rolled in big drops down his 
sides; I myself felt as if drenched in warm water. 
Pledging myself to take my revenge at a future 
opportunity, I looked about for some indications to 
show me where I was, and what course I ought to 
pursue; I might as well have looked for landmarks 
in the midst of the ocean. How many miles I had 
run, or in what direction, I had no idea; and around 
me the prairie was rolling in steep swells and pitches, 
without a single distinctive feature to guide me. I 
had a little compass hung at my neck ; and, ignorant 
that the Platte at this point diverged considerably 
from its easterly course, I thought that by keeping 
to the northward I should certainly reach it. So I 
turned and rode about two hours in that direction. 
The prairie changed as I advanced, softening away 
into easier undulations, but nothing like the Platte 
appeared, nor any sign of a human being: the same 
wild endless expanse lay around me still ; and to all 



THE BUFFALO. 95 

appearance I was as far from my object as ever. I 
began now to think myself in danger of being lost, 
and, reining in my horse, summoned the scanty share 
of woodcraft that I possessed (if that term is appli- 
cable upon the prairie) to extricate me. It occurred 
to me that the buffalo might prove my best guides. 
I soon found one of the paths made by them in their 
passage to the river: it ran nearly at right angles to 
my course; but turning my horse's head in the direc- 
tion it indicated, his freer gait and erected ears 
assured me that I was right. 

But in the mean time my ride had been by no 
means a solitary one. The face of the country was 
dotted far and wide with countless hundreds of 
buffalo. They trooped along in files and columns, 
bulls, cows, and calves, on the green faces of the 
declivities in front. They scrambled away over the 
hills to the right and left; and far off, the pale blue 
swells in the extreme distance were dotted with 
innumerable specks. Sometimes I surprised shaggy 
old bulls grazing alone, or sleeping behind the ridges 
I ascended. They would leap up at my approach, 
stare stupidly at me through their tangled manes, and 
then gallop heavily away. The antelope were very 
numerous ; and as they are always bold when in the 
neighborhood of buffalo, they would approach to look 
at me, gaze intently with their great round eyes, then 
suddenly leap aside, and stretch lightly away over 
the prairie, as swiftly as a race-horse. Squalid, 
ruffian-like wolves sneaked through the hollows and 



96 THE OREGOX TRAIL. 

sandy ravines. Several times I passed through vil- 
lages of prairie-dogs, who sat, each at the mouth of 
his burrow, holding his paws before him in a suppli- 
cating attitude, and yelping away most vehemently, 
whisking his little tail with every squeaking cry he 
uttered. Prairie-dogs are not fastidious in their 
choice of companions ; various long checkered snakes 
were sunning themselves in the midst of the village, 
and demure little gray owls, with a large white ring 
around each eye, were perched side by side with the 
rightful inhabitants. The prairie teemed with life. 
Again and again I looked toward the crowded hill- 
sides, and was sure I saw horsemen; and riding 
near, with a mixture of hope and dread, for Indians 
were abroad, I found them transformed into a 
group of buffalo. There was nothing in human 
shape amid all this vast congregation of brute 
forms. 

When I turned down the buffalo path, the prairie 
seemed changed; only a wolf or two glided by at 
intervals, like conscious felons, never looking to the 
right or left. Being now free from anxiety, I was at 
leisure to observe minutely the objects around me; 
and here, for the first time, I noticed insects wholly 
different from any of the varieties found farther to 
the eastward. Gaudy butterflies fluttered about my 
horse's head ; strangely formed beetles, glittering 
with metallic lustre, were crawling upon plants that 
I had never seen before ; multitudes of lizards, too, 
were darting like lightning over the sand. 



THE BUFFALO. 97 

I had run to a great distance from the river. It 
cost me a long ride on the buffalo path, before I saw, 
from the ridge of a sand-hill, the pale surface of the 
Platte glistening in the midst of its desert valley, 
and the faint outline of the hills beyond waving along 
the sky. From where I stood, not a tree nor a bush 
nor a living thing was visible throughout the whole 
extent of the sun-scorched landscape. In half an 
hour I came upon the trail, not far from the river; 
and seeing that the party had not yet passed, I turned 
eastward to meet them, old Pontiac's long swinging 
trot again assuring me that I was right in doing so. 
Having been slightly ill on leaving camp in the 
morning, six or seven hours of rough riding had 
fatigued me extremely. I soon stopped, therefore, 
flung my saddle on the ground, and with my head 
resting on it, and my horse's trail-rope tied loosely to 
my arm, lay waiting the arrival of the party, specu- 
lating meanwhile on the extent of the injuries 
Pontiac had received. At length the white wagon 
coverings rose from the verge of the plain. By a 
singular coincidence, almost at the same moment 
two horsemen appeared coming down from the hills. 
They were Shaw and Henry, v/ho had searched for 
me awhile in the morning, but well knowing the 
futility of the attempt in such a broken country, had 
placed themselves on the top of the highest hill they 
could find, and picketing their horses near them, as a 
signal to me, had lain down and fallen asleep. The 

stray cattle had been recovered, as the emigrants told 

7 



98 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

us, about noon. Before sunset, we pushed fomvard 
eiglit miles farther. 

" June 7, 1846. — Four men are missing : R , Sorel, 

and two emigrants. They set out this morning after 
buffalo, and have not yet made their appearance; whether 
killed or lost, we cannot tell." 

I find the above in my note-book, and well remem- 
ber the council held on the occasion. Our fire was 
the scene of it; for the superiority of Henry Chatil- 
lon's experience and skill made him the resort of the 
whole camp upon every question of difficulty. He 
was moulding bullets at the fire, when the captain 
drew near, with a perturbed and careworn expres- 
sion of countenance, faithfully reflected on the heavy 
features of Jack, who followed close behind. Then 
the emicjrants came straggfling from their wagons 
towards the common centre. Various suggestions 
were made, to account for the absence of the four 
men, and one or two of the emigrants declared that, 
when out after the cattle, they had seen Indians dog- 
ging them, and crawling like wolves along the ridges 
of the hills. At this the captain slowly shook his 
head with double gravity, and solemnly remarked, — 

"It's a serious tliino- to be travellinsf throusch this 
cursed wilderness ; " an opinion in which Jack imme- 
diately expressed a thorough coincidence. Henry 
would not commit himself by declaring any positive 
opinion. 



THE BUFFALO. 99 

"Maybe he only followed the buffalo too far; 
maybe Indian kill him; maybe he got lost; I cannot 
tell." 

With this the auditors were obliged to rest content; 
the emigrants, not in the least alarmed, though 
curious to know what had become of their comrades, 
walked back to their wagons, and the captain betook 
himself pensively to his tent. Shaw and I followed 
his example. 



Lore. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 

On the eighth of June, at eleven o'clock, we 
reached the South Fork of the Platte, at the usual 
fording-place. For league upon league the desert 
uniformity of the prospect was almost unbroken ; the 
hills were dotted with little tufts of shrivelled grass, 
but betwixt these the white sand was glaring in the 
sun ; and the channel of the river, almost on a level 
with the plain, was but one great sand-bed, about 
half a mile wide. It was covered with water, but so 
scantily that the bottom was scarcely hidden; for, 
wide as it is, the average depth of the Platte does 
not at this point exceed a foot and a half. Stopping 
near its bank, we gathered hois de vache, and made a 
meal of buffalo-meat. Far off, on the other side, was 
a green meadow, where we could see the v/hite tents 
and wagons of an emigrant camp; and just opposite 
to us we could discern a group of men and animals 
at the water's edge. Four or five horsemen soon 
entered the river, and in ten minutes had waded 
across and clambered up the loose sand-bank. They 
were ill-looking fellows, thin and swarthy, with 
careworn anxious faces, and lips rigidly compressed. 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. lul 

Tliey had good cause for anxiety ; it was three days 
since they first encamped liere, and on the night of 
their arrival they had lost a hundred and twenty- 
three of their best cattle, driven off by the wolves, 
through the neglect of the man on guard. This dis- 
couraging and alarming calamity was not the first 
that had overtaken them. Since leaving the settle- 
ments they had met with nothing but misfortune. 
Some of their party had died; one man had been 
killed by the Pawnees ; and about a week before they 
had been plundered by the Dahcotahs of all their 
best horses, the wretched animals on which our visi- 
tors were mounted being the onl}^ ones that were left. 
They had encamped, they told us, near sunset, by 
the side of the Platte, and their oxen were scattered 
over the meadow, while the horses were feeding a 
little farther off. Suddenly the ridges of the hills 
were alive with a swarm of mounted Indians, at least 
six hundred in number, who came pouring with a 
yell down towards the camp, rushing up within a few 
rods, to the great terror of the emigrants; when, 
suddenly wheeling, they swept around the band of 
horses, and in five minutes disappeared with their 
prey through the openings of the hills. 

As these emigrants were telling their story, we 
saw four other men approaching. They proved to 

be R and his companions, who had encountered 

no mischance of any kind, but had only wandered 
too far in pursuit of the game. They said they had 
seen no Indians, but only "millions of buffalo;" and 



102 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

both R and Sorel had meat danghng behind their 

saddles. 

The emigrants recrossed the river, and we prepared 
to follow. First the heavy ox-wagons plunged down 
the bank, and dragged slowly over the sand-beds; 
sometimes the hoofs of the oxen were scarcely wet 
by the thin sheet of water; and the next moment the 
river would be boiling against their sides, and eddy- 
ing around the wheels. Inch by inch they receded 
from the shore, dwindling every moment, until at 
length they seemed to be floating far out in the 
middle of the river. A more critical experiment 
awaited us ; for our little mule-cart was ill fitted for 
the passage of so swift a stream. We watched it 
with anxiety, till it seemed a motionless white speck 
in the midst of the waters ; and it was motionless, for 
it had stuck fast in a quicksand. The mules were 
losing their footing, the wheels were sinking deeper 
and deeper, and the water began to rise through the 
bottom and drench the goods within. All of us who 
had remained on the hither bank galloped to the 
rescue; the men jumped into the water, adding their 
strength to that of the mules, until by much effort 
the cart was extricated, and conveyed in safety 
across. 

As we gained the other bank, a rough group of 
men surrounded us. They were not robust, nor 
large of frame, yet they had an aspect of hardy 
endurance. Finding at home no scope for their 
energies, they had betaken themselves to the prairie; 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 103 

and in them seemed to be revived, with redoubled 
force, that fierce spirit which impelled their ancestors, 
scarcely more lawless than themselves, from the 
German forests, to inundate Europe, and overwhelm 
the Roman empire. A fortnight afterwards this 
unfortunate party passed Fort Laramie, while we 
were there. Not one of their missing oxen had been 
recovered, though they had remained encamped a 
week in search of them ; and they had been compelled 
to abandon a great part of their baggage and provisions, 
and yoke cows and heifers to their wagons to carry 
them forward upon their journey, the most toilsome 
and hazardous part of which lay still before them. 

It is worth noticing that on the Platte one may 
sometimes see the shattered wrecks of ancient claw- 
footed tables, well waxed and rubbed, or massive 
bureaus of carved oak. These, some of them no 
doubt the relics of ancestral prosperity in the colonial 
time, must have encountered strange vicissitudes. 
Brought, perhaps, originally from England; then, 
with the declining fortunes of their owners, borne 
across the Alleghanies to the wilderness of Ohio or 
Kentucky ; then to Illinois or Missouri ; and now at 
last fondly stowed away in the family wagon for the 
interminable journey to Oregon. But the stern pri- 
vations of the way are little anticipated. The cher- 
ished relic is soon flung out to scorch and crack upon 
the hot prairie. 

We resumed our journey ; but we had gone scarcely 
a mile when R called out from the rear, — 



104 THE OrxEGON TRAIL. 

"We'll 'camp here." 

" Why do you want to 'camp ? Look at the sun. 
It is not three o'clock yet." 

"Yfe'll 'camp here!" 

This was the only reply vouchsafed. Deslauriers 
was in advance with his cart. Seeing the mule- 
wagon wheeling from the track, he began to turn his 
ov/n team in the same direction. 

"Go on, Deslauriers; " and the little cart advanced 
again. As we rode on, we soon heard the wagon of 
our confederates creaking and jolting behind us, and 
the driver, Wright, discharging a furious volley of 
oaths against his mules ; no doubt venting upon them 
the wrath which he dared not direct against a more 
appropriate object. 

Something of this sort had frequently occurred. 
Our English companion was by no means partial to 
us, and we thought we discovered in his conduct an 
intention to thwart and annoy us, especially by retard- 
ing the movements of the party, which he knew that 
we were anxious to quicken. Therefore he would 
insist on encamping at all unseasonable hours, saying 
that fifteen miles was a sufficient day's journey. Find- 
ing our wishes disregarded, we took the direction of 
affairs into our own hands. Keeping always in ad- 
vance, to the inexpressible indignation of R , we 

encamped at what time and place we thought proper, 
not much caring whether the rest chose to follow or 
not. They always did so, however, pitching their tent 
near ours, with sullen and wrathful countenances. 



TAKI^sTx FRENCH LEAVE. 105 

Travelling together on these terms did not suit 
our tastes, and for some time we had meditated a 
separation. We resolved to leave camp early in the 
morning, and push forward as rapidly as possible 
for Fort Laramie, which we hoped to reach, by 
hard travelling, in four or five days. The captain 
soon trotted up between us, and we explained our 
intentions. 

"A very extraordinary proceeding, upon my word! " 
he remarked. The most prominent impression in his 
mind evidently was that we were deserting his party, 
in what he regarded as a ver}^ dangerous stage of the 
journey. We ventured to suggest that we were only 
four in number, while his party still included sixteen 
men; and as we were to go forward and they were to 
follow, a full proportion of the perils he apprehended 
would fall upon us. But the austerity of the cap- 
tain's features would not relax. "A very extraordi- 
nary proceeding, gentlemen! " and repeating this, he 
rode off to confer with his principal. 

Before sunrise on the next morning our tent was 
down ; we harnessed our best horses to the cart and 
left the camp. But first we shook hands with our 
friends the emigrants, who sincerely wished us a safe 
journey, though some others of the party might easily 
have been consoled had we encountered an Indian 
war-party on the way. The captain and his brother 
were standing on the top of a hill, wrapped in their 
plaids, like spirits of the mist, keeping an anxious 
eye on the baud of horses below. We waved adieu 



106 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to them as we rode off the ground. The captain 
replied with a salutation of the utmost dignity, 
which Jack tried to imitate, though not with perfect 
success. 

In five minutes we had gained the foot of the hills, 
but here we came to a stop. Hendrick was in the 
shafts, and being the incarnation of perverse and 
brutish obstinacy, he utterly refused to move. 
Deslauriers lashed and swore till he was tired, but 
Hendrick stood like a rock, grumbling to himself and 
looking askance at his enemy, until he saw a favor- 
able opportunity to take his revenge, when he struck 
out under the shaft with such cool malignity of 
intention that Deslauriers only escaped the blow by a 
sudden skip into the air, such as no one but a French- 
man could achieve. Shaw and he then joined forces, 
and lashed on both sides at once. The brute stood 
still for a while, till he could bear it no longer, when 
he began to kick and plunge till he threatened the 
utter demolition of the cart and harness. We glanced 
back at the camp, which was in full sight. Our com- 
panions, inspired by emulation, were levelling their 
tents and driving in their cattle and horses. 

"Take the horse out," said I. 

I took the saddle from Pontiac and put it upon 
Hendrick ; the former was harnessed to the cart in an 
instant, "^-yawcg f/o?ic /" cried Deslauriers. Pontiac 
strode up the hill, twitching the little cart after him 
as if it were a feather's weight ; and though, as we 
gained the top, we saw the wagons of our deserted 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 107 

comrades just getting into motion, we had little fear 
that they could overtake us. 

Leaving the trail, we struck directly across the 
country, and took the shortest cut to reach the main 
stream of the Platte. A deep ravine suddenly inter- 
cepted us. We skirted its sides until we found them 
less abrupt, and then plunged through in the best 
way we could. Passing behind the sandy ravines 
called "Ash Hollow," we stopped for a short noon- 
ing at the side of a pool of rain-water; but soon 
resumed our journey, and some hours before sunset de- 
scended the ravines and gorges opening downward upon 
the Platte west of Ash Hollow. Our horses waded 
to the fetlock in sand; the sun scorched like fire, and 
the air swarmed with sand-flies and mosquitoes. 

At last we gained the Platte. Following it for 
about five miles, we saw, just as the sun was sinking, 
a great meadow, dotted with hundreds of cattle, and 
beyond them an encampment of emigrants. A party 
of them came out to meet us, looking upon us at first 
with cold and suspicious faces. Seeing four men, 
different in appearance and equipment from them- 
selves, emerging from the hills, they had taken us 
for the van of the much-dreaded Mormons, whom 
they were very apprehensive of encountering. We 
made known our true character, and then they 
greeted us cordially. They expressed much surprise 
that so small a party should venture to traverse that 
region, though in fact such attempts are often made 
by trappers and Indian traders. We rode with them 



108 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to their camp. The wagons, some fifty in number, 
with here and there a tent intervening, were arranged 
as usual in a circle ; the Lest horses were picketed in 
the area within, and the whole circumference was 
glowing with the dusky light of fires, displaying the 
forms of the women and children who were crowded 
around them. This patriarchal scene was curious 
and striking enough ; but we made our escape from 
the place with all possible despatch, being tormented 
by the intrusive questioning of the men who thronged 
about us. Yankee curiosity was nothing to theirs. 
They demanded our names, whence we came, whither 
we were going, and what was our business. The last 
query was particularly embarrassing; since travel- 
ling in that country, or indeed anywhere, from any 
other motive than gain, was an idea of which they 
took no cognizance. Yet they were fine-looking 
fellows, with an air of frankness, generosity, and 
even courtesy, having come from one of the least 
barbarous of the frontier counties. 

We passed about a mile beyond them, and encamped. 
Being too few in number to stand guard without 
excessive fatigue, we extinguished our fire, lest it 
should attract the notice of wandering Indians ; and, 
picketing our horses close around us, slept undis- 
turbed till morning. For three days we travelled 
without interruption, and on the evening of the third 
encamped by the well-known spring on Scott's Bluff. 

Henry Chatillon and I rode out in the morning, 
and, descending the western side of the Bluff, were 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 109 

crossing the plain beyond. Something that seemed 
to me a file of buffalo came into view, descending 
the hills several miles before us. But Henry reined 
in his horse, and, peering across the prairie with a 
better and more practised eye, soon discovered its 
real nature. " Indians !" he said. "Old Smoke's 
lodges, I b'lieve. Come; let us go! Wah! get up, 
now, ' Five Hundred Dollar.' " And laying on the 
lash with good will, he galloj)ed forward, and I rode 
by his side. Not long after, a black speck became 
visible on the prairie, full two miles off. It grew 
larger and larger ; it assumed the form of a man and 
horse; and soon we could discern a naked Indian, 
careering at full gallop towards us. When within a 
furlong he wheeled his horse in a wide circle, and 
made him describe various mystic figures upon the 
prairie; Henry immediately compelled "Five Hun- 
dred Dollar " to execute similar evolutions. " It is 
Old Smoke's village," said he, interpreting these 
signals; "didn't I say so?" 

As the Indian approached we stopped to wait for 
him, when suddenly he vanished, sinking, as it were, 
into the earth. He had come upon one of the deep 
ravines that everj-where intersect these prairies. In 
an instant the rough head of his horse stretched up- 
ward from the edge, and the rider and steed came 
scrambling out, and bounded up to us; a sudden 
jerk of the rein brought the wild panting horse to a 
full stop. Then followed the needful formality of 
shaking hands. I forget our visitor's name. He was 



110 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

a young fellow, of no note in his nation ; yet in his 
person and equipments he was a good specimen of 
a Dahcotah warrior in his ordinary travelling dress. 
Like most of his people, he was nearly six feet high ; 
lithely and gracefully, yet strongly proportioned; 
and with a skin singularly clear and delicate. He 
wore no paint ; his head was bare ; and his long hair 
was gathered in a clump behind, to the top of which 
was attached transversely, both by way of ornament 
and of talisman, the mystic whistle, made of the wing- 
bone of the war-eagle, and endowed with various 
magic virtues. From the back of his head descended 
a line of glittering brass plates, tapering from the size 
of a doubloon to that of a half-dime, a cumbrous 
ornament, in high vogue among the Dahcotahs, and 
for which they pay the traders a most extravagant 
price; his chest and arms were naked, the buffalo- 
robe, worn over them when at rest, had fallen about 
his waist, and was confined there by a belt. This, 
with the gay moccasons on his feet, completed his 
attire. For arms he carried a quiver of dog-skin at 
his back, and a rude but powerful bow in his hand. 
His horse had no bridle; a cord of hair, lashed 
around his jaw, served in place of one. The saddle 
was made of wood covered with raw hide, and both 
pommel and cantle rose perpendicularly full eighteen 
inches, so that the warrior was wedged firmly in his 
seat, whence nothing could dislodge him but the 
bursting of the girths. 

Advancing with our new companion, we found 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. Ill 

more of liis people, seated in a circle on the top of a 
liill; while a rude procession came straggling down 
the neighboring hollow, men, women, and children, 
with horses dragging the lodge-poles behind them. 
All that morning, as we moved forward, tall savages 
were stalking silently about us. At noon we reached 
Horse Creek. The main body of the Indians had 
arrived before us. On the farther bank stood a large 
and strong man, nearly naked, holding a white horse 
by a long cord, and eying us as we approached. 
This was the chief, whom Henry called " Old Smoke." 
Just behind him, his youngest and favorite squaw sat 
astride a fine mule, covered with caparisons of whit- 
ened sldns, garnished with blue and white beads, 
and fringed with little ornaments of metal that 
tinkled with every movement of the animal. The 
girl had a light clear complexion, enlivened by a spot 
of vermilion on each cheek; she smiled, not to say 
grinned, upon us, showing two gleaming rows of 
white teeth. In her hand she carried the tall lance 
of her unchivalrous lord, fluttering with feathers; 
his round white shield hung at the side of her mule; 
and his pipe was slung at her back. Her dress was 
a tunic of deer-skin, made beautifully white by means 
of a species of cla}^ found on the prairie, ornamented 
with beads, arranged in figures more gay than taste- 
ful, and with long fringes at all the seams. Not far 
from the chief stood a group of stately figures, their 
white buffalo-robes thrown over their shoulders, gaz- 
ing coldly upon us ; and in the rear, for several acres, 



112 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the ground was covered with a temporary encamp- 
ment. Warriors, women, and children swarmed like 
bees; hundreds of dogs, of all sizes and colors, ran 
restlessly ahout ; and, close at hand, the wide shallow 
stream was alive with boys, girls, and young squaws, 
splashing, screaming, and laughing in the water. At 
the same time a long train of emigrants with their 
heavy wagons was crossing the creek, and dragging 
on in slow procession by the encampment of the 
people whom they and their descendants, in the space 
of a century, are to sweep from the face of the 
earth. 

The encampment itself was merely a temporary 
one during the heat of the day. None of the lodges 
were pitched ; but their heavy leather coverings, and 
the long poles used to support them, were scattered 
everywhere, among weapons, domestic utensils, and 
the rude harness of mules and horses. The squaws 
of each lazy warrior had made him a shelter from 
the sun, by stretching a few buffalo-robes, or the 
corner of a lodge-covering, upon poles ; and here he 
sat in the shade, with a favorite young squaw, per- 
haps, at his side, glittering with all imaginable 
trinkets. Before him stood the insignia of his rank 
as a warrior, his white shield of bull-hide, his medi- 
cine-bag, his bow and quiver, his lance and his pipe, 
raised aloft on a tripod of poles. Except the dogs, 
the most active and noisy tenants of the camp were 
the old women, ugly as Macbeth's witches, with hair 
streaming loose in the wind, and nothing but the 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 113 

tattered fragment of an old buffalo-robe to hide their 
shrivelled limbs. The day of their favoritism passed 
two generations ago ; now the heaviest labors of the 
camp devolved upon them; they must harness the 
horses, pitch the lodges, dress the buffalo-robes, and 
bring in meat for the hunters. With the cracked 
voices of these hags, the clamor of dogs, the shouting 
and laughing of children and girls, and the listless 
tranquillity of the warriors, the whole scene had an 
effect too lively and picturesque to be forgotten. 

We stopped not far from the Indian camp, and 
having invited some of the chiefs and warriors to 
dinner, placed before them a repast of biscuit and 
coffee. Squatted in a half -circle on the ground, they 
soon disposed of it. As we rode forward on the 
afternoon journey, several of our late guests accom- 
panied us. Among the rest was a bloated savage, of 
more than three hundred pounds' weight, christened 
Le Cochon^ in consideration of his preposterous dimen- 
sions, and certain corresponding traits of his charac- 
ter. " The Hog " bestrode a little white pony, scarcely 
able to bear up under the enormous burden, though, 
by way of keeping up the necessary stimulus, the 
rider kept both feet in constant motion, playing alter- 
nately against his ribs. The old man was not a 
chief; he never had ambition enough to become one; 
he was not a warrior nor a hunter, for he was too fat 
and lazy ; but he was the richest man in the village. 
Riches among the Dahcotahs consist in horses, and 
of these "The Hog" had accumulated more than 



114 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

thirty. He had ah-eady ten times as many as he 
wanted, yet still his ajDpetite for horses was insatiable. 
Trotting up to me, he shook me by the hand, and 
gave me to understand that he was my devoted 
friend ; then he began a series of signs and gesticula- 
tion, his oily countenance radiant with smiles, and 
his little eyes peeping out with a cunning twinkle 
from between the masses of flesh that almost obscured 
them. Knowing nothing at that time of the sign- 
language of the Indians, I could only guess at his 
meaning. So I called on Henry to explain it. 

"The Hog," it seems, was anxious to conclude a 
matrimonial bargain, and barter one of his daughters 
for my horse. These overtures I chose to reject; at 
which "The Hog," still laughing with undiminished 
good humor, gathered his robe about his shoulders, 
and rode away. 

Where we encamped that night, an arm of the 
Platte ran between high bluffs; it was turbid and 
swift as heretofore, but trees were growing on its 
crumbling banks, and there was a nook of grass 
between the water and the hill. Just before entering 
this place, we saw the emigrants encamping two or 
three miles distant on the right; while the whole 
Indian rabble were pouring down the neighboring 
hill in hope of the same sort of entertainment which 
they had experienced from us. In the savage land- 
scape before our camp, nothing but the rushing of 
the Platte broke the silence. Through the ragged 
boughs of the trees, dilapidated and half dead, we 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 115 

saw the sun settiiig- in crimson behind the peaks of 
the Black Hills ; the restless bosom of the river was 
suffused with red ; our white tent was tinged with it, 
and the sterile bluffs, up to the rocks that crowned 
them, partook of the same fiery hue. It soon passed 
away; no light remained but that from our lire, 
blazing high among the dusky trees and bushes, while 
we lay around it wrapped in our blankets, smoking 
and conversing through half the night. 

We crossed a sun-scorched plain on the next morn- 
ing; the line of old cotton-wood trees that fringed 
the bank of the Platte forming its extreme verge. 
Nestled close beneath them, we could discern in the 
distance something like a building. As we came 
nearer, it assumed form and dimensions, and proved 
to be a rough structure of logs. It was a little trad- 
ing fort, belonging to two private traders; and 
originally intended, like all the forts of the country, 
to form a hollow square, with rooms for lodging and 
storage opening upon the area within. Only two 
sides of it had been completed ; the place was now as 
ill-fitted for the purposes of defence as any of those 
little log-houses which upon our constantly-shifting 
frontier have been so often successfully held against 
overwhelming odds of Indians. Two lodges were 
pitched close to the fort; the sun beat scorching 
upon the logs; no living thing was stirring except 
one old squaw, who thrust her round head from the 
opening of the nearest lodge, and three or four stout 
young puppies, who were peeping with looks of eager 



116 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

inquiry from under the covering. In a moment a 
door opened, and a little, swarthy, black-e3'ed French- 
man came out. His dress was rather singular; his 
black curling hair was parted in the middle of his 
head, and fell below his shoulders; he wore a tight 
frock of smoked deer-skin, gayly ornamented with 
figures worked in dyed porcupine-quills. His mocca- 
sons and leggins were also gaudily adorned in the 
same manner; and the latter had in addition a line 
of long fringes, reaching down the seams. The small 
frame of Richard, for by this name Plenry made him 
known to us, was in the highest degree athletic and 
vigorous. There was no superfluity, and indeed 
there seldom is among the white men of this country, 
but every limb was compact and hard ; every sinew 
had its full tone and elasticity, and the whole man 
wore an air of mingled hardihood and buoyancy. 

Richard committed our horses to a Navaho slave, 
a mean-looking fellow, taken prisoner on the Mexican 
frontier; and, relieving us of our rifles with ready 
politeness, led the way into the principal apartment 
of his establishment. Tliis was a room ten feet 
square. The walls and floor were of black mud, and 
the roof of rough timber; there was a huge fireplace 
made of four flat rocks, picked up on the prairie. 
An Indian bow and otter-skin quiver, several gaudy 
articles of Rocky Mountain finery, an Indian medi- 
cine-bag, and a pipe and tobacco-pouch, garnished 
the walls, and rifles rested in a corner. There was 
no furniture except a sort of rough settle, covered 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 117 

with buffalo-robes, upon which lolled a tall half- 
breed with his hair glued in masses upon each temple, 
and saturated with vermilion. Two or three more 
" mountain men " sat cross-legged on the floor. Their 
attire was not unlike that of Richard himself; but 
the most striking figure of the group was a naked 
Indian boy of sixteen, with a handsome face, and 
light, active proportions, who sat in an easy posture 
in the corner near the door. Not one of his limljs 
moved the breadth of a hair; his eye was fixed 
immovably, not on any person present, but, as it 
appeared, on the jDi'ojecting corner of the fireplace 
opposite to him. 

On the prairie the custom of smoking with friends 
is seldom omitted, whether among Indians or whites. 
The pipe, therefore, was taken from the wall, and its 
red bowl crammed with the tobacco and sJiongsasha, 
mixed in suitable proportions. Then it passed round 
the circle, each man inhaling a few whiffs and hand- 
ing it to his neighbor. Having spent half an hour 
here, we took our leave; first inviting our new 
friends to drink a cup of coffee with us at our camp 
a mile farther up the river. 

By this time we had grown rather shabby; our 
clothes had burst into rags and tatters; and, what 
was worse, we had little means of renovation. Fort 
Laramie was but seven miles before us. Beinsr 
averse to appearing in such a plight among any 
society that could boast an approximation to the 
civilized, we stopped by the river to make our toilet 



118 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

in the best way we could. We hung up small look- 
ing-glasses against the trees and shaved, an opera- 
tion neglected for six weeks; we performed our 
ablutions in the Platte, though the utility of such a 
proceeding was questionable, the water looking exactly 
like a cup of chocolate, and the banks consisting of 
the softest and richest yellow mud, so that we were 
obliged, as a preliminaiy, to build a causeway of 
branches and twigs. Having also put on radiant 
moccasons, procured from a squaw of Richard's estab- 
lishment, and made what other improvements our 
narrow circumstances allowed, we took our seats on 
the grass with a feeling of greatly increased respecta- 
bility, to await the arrival of our guests. They 
came; the banquet was concluded, and the pipe 
smoked. Biddhig them adieu, we turned our horses' 
heads towards the fort. 

An hour elapsed. The barren hills closed across 
our front, and we could see no farther; until, having 
surmounted them, a rapid stream appeared at the 
foot of the descent, running into the Platte ; beyond 
was a green meadow, dotted with bushes, and in the 
midst of these, at the point where the two rivers 
joined, were the low clay walls of a fort. This was 
not Fort Laramie, but another post, of less recent 
date, which having sunk before its successful com- 
petitor, was now deserted and ruinous. A moment 
after, the hills seeming to draw apart as we advanced, 
disclosed Fort Laramie itself, its high bastions and 
perpendicular walls of clay crowning an eminence on 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 119 

the left beyond the stream, while behind stretched a 
line of arid and desolate ridges, and behind these 
again, towering seven thousand feet aloft, rose the 
grim Black Hills. 

We tried to ford Laramie Creek at a point nearly 
opposite the fort, but the stream, swollen with rains, 
was too rapid. We passed up along its Ijank to find 
a better crossing-place. Men gathered on the wall to 
look at us. " There 's Bordeaux ! " called Henry, his 
face brightening as he recognized his acquaintance; 
" him there with the spy-glass ; and there 's old 
Vaskiss, and Tucker, and jMay; and, by George! 
there's Simoneau." This Simoneau was Henry's 
fast friend, and the only man in the country who 
could rival him in hunting. 

We soon found a ford. Henry led the way, the 
pony approaching the bank with a countenance of 
cool indifference, bracing his feet and sliding into the 
stream with the most unmoved composure. We fol- 
lowed ; the water boiled against our saddles, but our 
horses bore us easily through. The unfortunate little 
mules were near going down with the current, cart 
and all; and we watched them with some solicitude 
scrambling over the loose round stones at the bottom, 
and bracing stoutly against the stream. All landed 
safely at last; we crossed a little plain, descended a 
hollow, and, riding up a steep bank, found ourselves 
before the gateway of Fort Laramie, under the 
impending blockhouse erected above it to defend 
the entrance. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 

Looking back, after tlie expiration of a year, upon 
Fort Laramie and its inmates, they seem less like a 
reality than like some fanciful picture of the olden 
time ; so different was the scene from any which this 
tamer side of the world can present. Tall Indians, 
enveloped in their white buffalo-robes, were striding 
across the area or reclining at full length on the low 
roofs of the buildings which enclosed it. Numerous 
squaws, gayly bedizened, sat grouped in front of the 
rooms they occupied; their mongrel offspring, rest- 
less and vociferous, rambled in every direction 
through the fort; and the trappers, traders, and 
engages of the establishment were busy at their labor 
or their amusements. 

We were met at the gate, but by no means cordially 
welcomed. Indeed, we seemed objects of some dis- 
trust and suspicion, until Henry Chatillon explained 
that we were not traders, and we, in confirmation, 
handed to the bourgeois a letter of introduction from 
his principals. He took it, turned it upside down, 
and tried hard to read it ; but his literary attainments 
not being adequate to the task, he applied for relief 



SCEXES AT FORT LARAMIE. 121 

to tlie clerk, a sleek, smiling Frenchman, named 
Monthalon. The letter read, Bordeaux (the hcmrgcoiti) 
seemed gradually to awaken to a sense of what v/as 
expected of him. Though not deficient in hospitable 
intentions, he was wholly unaccustomed to act as 
master of ceremonies. Discarding all formalities of 
reception, he did not honor us with a single word, 
but walked swiftly across the area, while we followed 
in some admiration to a railing and a flight of steps 
opposite the entrance. He signed to us that we had 
better fasten our horses to the railing; then he 
walked up the steps, tramped along a rude balcony, 
and, kicking open a door, displayed a large room, 
rather more elaborately furnished than a barn. For 
furniture it had a rough bedstead, but no bed; two 
chairs, a chest of drawers, a tin pail to hold water, 
and a board to cut tobacco upon. A brass crucifix 
hung on the wall, and close at hand a recent scalp, 
with hair full a yard long, was suspended from a nail. 
I shall again have occasion to mention this dismal 
trophy, its history being connected with that of our 
subsequent proceedings. 

This apartment, the best in Fort Laramie, was that 
usually occupied by the legitimate hourgeois^ Papin, 
in whose absence the command devolved upon Bor- 
deaux. The latter, a stout, bluff little fellow, much 
inflated by a sense of his new authority, began to 
roar for buffalo -robes. These being brought and 
spread upon the floor, formed our beds ; much better 
ones than we had of late been accustomed to. Our 



122 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

arrangements made, we stepped out to the balcony to 
take a more leisurely survey of the long-looked-for 
haven at which we had arrived at last. Beneath us 
was the square area surrounded by little rooms, or 
rather cells, which opened upon it. These were 
devoted to various purposes, but served cliiefly for 
the accommodation of the men employed at the fort, 
or of the equally numerous squaws whom they were 
allowed to maintain in it. Opposite to us rose the 
blockhouse above the gateway ; it was adorned with 
the figure of a horse at full speed, daubed upon the 
boards with red paint, and exhibiting a degree of 
skill which might rival that displayed by the Indians 
in executing similar designs upon their robes and 
lodges. A busy scene was enacting in the area. 
The wagons of Vaskiss, an old trader, were about to 
set out for a remote post in the mountains, and the 
Canadians were going through their preparations 
with all possible bustle, while here and there an 
Indian stood looking on with imperturbable gravity. 
Fort Laramie is one of the posts established by the 
"American Fur Company," which wellnigh monopo- 
lizes the Indian trade of this region. Here its officials 
rule with an absolute sway; the arm of the United 
States has little force; for when we were there, the 
extreme outposts of her troops were about seven 
hundred miles to the eastward. The little fort is 
built of bricks dried in the sun, and externally is of 
an oblong form, with bastions of clay, in the form of 
ordinary blockhouses, at two of the corners. The 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 128 

walls are about fifteen feet high, and surmounted by 
a slender palisade. Tlie roofs of the apartments 
within, which are built close against the walls, serve 
the purpose of a banquette. Within, the fort is 
divided by a partition: on one side is the square 
area, surrounded by the store-rooms, offices, and 
apartments of the inmates; on the other is the corral^ 
a narrow place, encompassed by the high clay walls, 
where at night, or in presence of dangerous Indians, 
the horses and mules of the fort are crowded for safe 
keeping. The main entrance has two gates, with an 
arched passage intervening. A little square window, 
high above the ground, opens laterally from an 
adjoining chamber into this passage; so that when 
the inner gate is closed and barred, a person without 
may still hold communication with those within, 
through this narrow aperture. This obviates the 
necessity of admitting suspicious Indians, for pur- 
poses of trading, into the body of the fort; for when 
danger is apprehended, the inner gate is shut fast, 
and all traffic is carried on by means of the window. 
This precaution, though necessary at some of the 
company's posts, is seldom resorted to at Fort Laramie ; 
where, though men are frequently killed in the neigh- 
borhood, no apprehensions are felt of any general 
designs of hostility from the Indians. 

We did not long enjoy our new quarters undis- 
turbed. The door was silently pushed open, and 
two eyeballs and a visage as l)lack as night looked 
in upon us; then a red arm and shoulder intruded 



124 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

themselves, and a tall Indian, gliding in, shook us 
by the hand, grunted his salutation, and sat down on 
the floor. Others followed, with faces of the natural 
hue, and letting fall their heavy robes from their 
shoulders, took their seats, quite at ease, in a semi- 
circle before us. The pipe was now to be lighted 
and passed from one to another; and this was the 
only entertainment that at present they expected 
from us. These visitors were fathers, brothers, or 
other relatives of the squaws in the fort, where they 
were permitted to remain, loitering about in perfect 
idleness. All those who smoked Avith us were men of 
standing and repute. Two or three others dropped 
in also ; young fellows who neither by their years nor 
their exploits were entitled to rank with the old men 
and warriors, and who, abashed in the presence of 
their superiors, stood aloof, never withdrawing their 
eyes from us. Their cheeks were adorned with ver- 
milion, their ears with pendants of shell, and their 
necks with beads. Never yet having signalized 
themselves as hunters, or performed the honorable 
exploit of killing a man, they were held in slight 
esteem, and were diffident and bashful in proportion. 
Certain formidable inconveniences attended this influx 
of visitors. They were bent on inspecting everything 
in the room; our equipments and our dress alike 
underwent their scrutiny; for though the contrary 
has been asserted, few beings have more curiosity 
than Indians in regard to subjects A\ithin their ordi- 
nary range of thought. As to other matters, indeed, 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 125 

they seem utterly indifferent. They will not trouble 
themselves to inquire into what they cannot compre- 
hend, but are quite contented to place their hands 
over their mouths in token of wonder, and exclaim 
that it is "great medicine." With this comprehen- 
sive solution, an Indian never is at a loss. He never 
launches into speculation and conjecture; his reason 
moves in its beaten track. His soul is dormant; and 
no exertions of the missionaries, Jesuit or Puritan, 
of the old world or of the new, have as yet availed 
to arouse it. 

As we were looking, at sunset, from the wall, 
upon the desolate plains that surround the fort, we 
observed a cluster of strange objects, like scaffolds, 
rising in the distance against the red western sky. 
They bore aloft some singular-looking burdens ; and 
at their foot glimmered something white, like bones. 
This was the place of sepulture of some Dahcotah 
chiefs, whose remains their people are fond of placing 
in the vicinity of the fort, in the hope that they may 
thus be protected from violation at the hands of their 
enemies. Yet it has happened more than once, and 
quite recently, that war-parties of the Crow Indians, 
ranging through the country, have thrown the bodies 
from the scaffolds, and broken them to pieces, amid 
the yells of the Dahcotah, who remained pent up in the 
fort, too few to defend the honored relics from insult. 
The white objects upon the ground were buffalo 
skulls, arranged in the mystic circle commonly seen 
at Indian places of sepulture upon the prairie. 



126 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

We soon discovered, in the twilight, a band of fifty 
or sixty horses approaching the fort. These were 
the animals belonging to the establishment; who, 
having been sent out to feed, under the care of armed 
guards, in the meadows below, were now being driven 
into the corral for the night. A gate opened into 
this enclosure: by the side of it stood one of the 
guards, an old Canadian, with gray bushy eyebrows, 
and a dragoon-pistol stuck into his belt; while his 
comrade, mounted on horseback, his rifle laid across 
the saddle in front, and his long hair blowing before 
his swarthy face, rode at the rear of the disorderly 
troop, urging them up the ascent. In a moment the 
narrow corral was thronged with the half-wild horses, 
kicking, biting, and crowding restlessly together. 

The discordant jingling of a bell, rung by a Cana- 
dian in the area, summoned us to supper. The repast 
was served on a rough table in one of the lower 
apartments of the fort, and consisted of cakes of bread 
and dried buffalo-meat, — • an excellent thing for 
strengthening the teeth. At this meal were seated 
the bourgeois and superior dignitaries of the establish- 
ment, among whom Henry Chatillon was worthily 
included. No sooner was it finished, than the table 
was spread a second time (the luxury of bread being 
now, however, omitted), for the benefit of certain 
hunters and trappers of an inferior standing; while 
the ordinary Canadian enrjages were regaled on dried 
meat in one of their lodging-rooms. By way of 
illustrating the domestic economy of Fort Laramie, 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 127 

it may not be amiss to introduce in this place a story 
current among the men when we were there. 

There was an old man named Pierre, whose duty 
it was to bring the meat from the store-room for the 
men. Old Pierre, in the kindness of his heart, used 
to select the fattest and the best pieces for his com- 
panions. This did not long escape the keen-eyed 
bourgeois, who was greatly disturbed at such improvi- 
dence, and cast about for some means to stop it. At 
last he hit on a plan that exactly suited him. At 
the side of the meat-room, and separated from it by 
a clay partition, was another apartment, used for the 
storage of furs. It had no communication with the 
fort, except through a square hole in the partition; 
and of course it was perfectly dark. One evening 
the bourgeois, watching for a moment when no one 
observed him, dodged into the meat-room, clambered 
through the hole, and ensconced himself among the 
furs and buffalo-robes. Soon after, old Pierre came 
in with his lantern, and, muttering to himself, began 
to pull over the bales of meat, and select the best 
pieces, as usual. But suddenly a hollow and sepul- 
chral voice proceeded from the inner room : " Pierre, 
Pierre ! Let that fat meat alone. Take nothing but 
lean." Pierre dropped his lantern, and bolted out 
into the fort, screaming, in an agony of terror, that 
the devil was in the store-room; but tripping on the 
threshold, he pitched over upon the gravel, and lay 
senseless, stunned by the fall. The Canadians ran 
out to the rescue. Some lifted the unlucky Pierre; 



128 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and others, making an extempore crucifix of two 
sticks, were proceeding to attack the devil in his 
stronghold, when the bourgeois^ with a crestfallen 
countenance, appeared at the door. To add to his 
mortification, he was obliged to explain the whole 
stratagem to Pierre, in order to bring him to his 
senses. 

We were sitting, on the following morning, in the 
passage-way between the gates, conversing with the 
traders Vaskiss and J\lay. These two men, together 
with our sleek friend, the clerk Monthalon, were, I 
believe, the only persons then in the fort who could 
read and write. May was telling a curious story 
about the traveller Catlin, when an ugly, diminutive 
Indian, wretchedly mounted, came up at a gallop, 
and rode by us into the fort. On being questioned, 
he said that Smoke's village was close at hand. 
Accordingly only a few minutes elapsed before the 
hills beyond the river were covered with a disorderly 
swarm of savages, on horseback and on foot. May 
finished his stor}' ; and by that time the whole array 
had descended to Laramie Creek, and begun to cross 
it in a mass. I walked down to the bank. The 
stream is wide, and was then between three and four 
feet deep, with a very swift current. For several 
rods the water was alive with dogs, horses, and 
Indians. The long poles used in pitching the lodges 
are carried by the horses, fastened by the heavier 
end, two or three on each side, to a rude sort of 
pack-saddle, while the other end drags on the ground. 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 129 

About a foot behind the horse, a kind of large basket 
or pannier is suspended between the poles, and firmly 
lashed in its place. On the back of the horse are 
piled various articles of luggage ; the basket also is 
well filled with domestic utensils, or, quite as often, 
with a litter of puppies, a brood of small children, or 
a superannuated old man. Numbers of these curious 
vehicles, traineaux, or, as the Canadians called them, 
travctux, were now splashing together through the 
stream. Among them swam countless dogs, often 
burdened with miniature traineaux ; and dashing for- 
ward on horseback through the throng came the 
warriors, the slender figure of some lynx-eyed boy 
clinging fast behind them. The women sat perched 
on the pack-saddles, adding not a little to the load of 
the already overburdened horses. The confusion was 
prodigious. The dogs yelled and howled in chorus ; 
the puppies in the tr'aineaux set up a dismal whine, 
as the water invaded their comfortable retreat; the 
little black-eyed children, from one year of age up- 
ward, clung fast with both hands to the edge of their 
basket, and looked over in alarm at the water rush- 
ing so near them, sputtering and making wry mouths 
as it sj)lashed against their faces. Some of the dogs, 
encumbered by their load, were carried down by the 
current, yelping piteously; and the old squaws would 
rush into the water, seize their favorites by the neck, 
and drag them out. As each horse gained the bank, 
he scrambled up as he could. Stray horses and colts 
came among the rest, often breaking away at full 



130 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

speed through the crowd, followed by the old hags, 
screaming after their fashion on all occasions of 
excitement. Buxom young squaws, blooming in all 
the charms of vermilion, stood here and there on the 
bank, holding aloft their master's lance, as a signal 
to collect the scattered portions of his household. In 
a few moments the crowd melted away ; each family, 
with its horses and equipage, filing off to the plain at 
the rear of the fort; and here, in the space of half an 
hour, arose sixty or seventy of their tapering lodges. 
Their horses were feeding by hundreds over the sur- 
rounding prairie, and their dogs were roaming every- 
where. The fort was full of warriors, and the 
children were whooping and yelling incessantly under 
the walls. 

These new-comers were scarcely arrived, when 
Bordeaux ran across the fort, shouting to his squaw 
to bring him his spy -glass. The obedient Marie, the 
very model of a squaw, produced the instrument, and 
Bordeaux hurried with it to the wall. Pointing it 
eastward, he exclaimed, with an oath, that the 
families were coming. But a few moments elapsed 
before the heavy caravan of the emigrant wagons 
could be seen, steadily advancing from the hills. 
They gained the river, and, without turning or paus- 
ing, plunged in, passed through, and slowly ascend- 
ing the opposing bank, kept directly on their way 
by the fort and the Indian village, until, gaining a 
spot a quarter of a mile distant, they wheeled into a 
circle. For some time our tranquillity was undis- 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 131 

turbed. The emigrants were preparing their encamp- 
ment; but no sooner was this accomplished, than 
Fort Laramie was taken by storm. A crowd of 
broad-brimmed hats, thin visages, and staring eyes, 
appeared suddenly at the gate. Tall, awkward men, 
in brown homespun; women, with cadaverous faces 
and long lank figures, came thronging in together, 
and, as if inspired by the very demon of curiosity, 
ransacked every nook and corner of the fort. Dis- 
mayed at this invasion, we withdrew in all speed to 
our chamber, vainly hoping that it might prove a 
sanctuary. The emigrants prosecuted their investi- 
gations with untiring vigor. They penetrated the 
rooms, or rather dens, inhabited by the astonished 
squaws. Resolved to search every mystery to the 
bottom, they explored the apartments of the men, 
and even that of Marie and the hotirgeois. At last a 
numerous deputation appeared at our door, but found 
no encouragement to remain. 

Having at length satisfied their curiosity, they 
next proceeded to business. The men occupied 
themselves in procuring supplies for their onward 
journey ; either buying them, or giving in exchange 
superfluous articles of their own. 

The emigrants felt a violent prejudice against the 
French Indians, as they called the trappers and trad- 
ers. They thought, and with some reason, that these 
men bore them no goodwill. Many of them were 
firmly persuaded that the French were instigating 
the Indians to attack and cut them off. On visiting 



132 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the encampment Ave were at once struck with the 
extraordinary perplexity and indecision that prevailed 
among them. They seemed like men totally out of 
their element; bewildered and amazed, like a troop 
of schoolboys lost in the woods. It was impossible 
to be long among them without being conscious of 
the bold spirit with which most of them were ani- 
mated. But the forest is the home of the backwoods- 
man. On the remote prairie he is totally at a loss. 
He differs as much from the genuine "mountain- 
man " as a Canadian voyagcur^ paddling his canoe on 
the rapids of the Ottawa, differs from an American 
sailor among the storms of Cape Horn. Still my 
companion and I were somewhat at a loss to account 
for this perturbed state of mind. It could not be 
cowardice: these men were of the same stock with 
the volunteers of Monterey and Buena Vista. Yet, 
for the most part, they were the rudest and most 
ignorant of the frontier population ; they knew abso- 
lutely nothing of the country and its inhabitants; 
they had already experienced much misfortune, and 
apprehended more; they had seen nothing of man- 
kind, and had never put their own resources to the 
test. 

A full share of suspicion fell upon us. Being 
strangers, we were looked upon as enemies. Having 
occasion for a supply of lead and a few other neces- 
sary articles, we used to go over to the emigrant 
camps to obtain them. After some hesitation, some 
dubious glances, and fumbling of the hands in the 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 133 

pockets, the terms would be agreed upon, the price 
tendered, and the emigrant would go off to bring the 
article in question. After waiting until our patience 
gave out, we would go in search of him, and find 
him seated on the tongue of his wagon. 

"Well, stranger," he would observe, as he saw 
us approach, "I reckon I won't trade." 

Some friend of his had followed him from the 
scene of the bargain, and whispered in his ear that 
clearly we meant to cheat him, and he had better 
have nothing to do with us. 

This timorous mood of the emigrants was doubly 
unfortunate, as it exposed them to real danger. 
Assume, in the presence of Indians, a bold bearing, 
self-confident yet vigilant, and you will find them 
tolerably safe neighbors. But your safety depends 
on the respect and fear you are able to inspire. If 
you betray timidity or indecision, you convert them 
from that moment into insidious and dangerous 
enemies. The Dahcotah saw clearly enough the 
perturbation of the emigrants, and instantly availed 
themselves of it. They became extremely insolent 
and exacting in their demands. It has become an 
established custom with them to go to the camp of 
every party, as it arrives in succession at the fort, 
and demand a feast. Smoke's village had come with 
this express design, having made several days' jour- 
ney with no other object than that of enjoying a cup 
of coffee and two or three biscuit. So the "feast" 
was demanded, and the emigrants dared not refuse it. 



•..|r 



134 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

One evening, about sunset, the village was deserted. 
We met old men, warriors, squaws, and children in 
gay attire, trooping off to the encampment, with 
faces of anticipation ; and, arriving here, they seated 
themselves in a semicircle. Smoke occupied the 
centre, with his warriors on either hand; the young 
men and boys came next, and the squaws and chil- 
dren formed the horns of the crescent. The biscuit 
and coffee were promptly despatched, the emigrants 
staring open-mouthed at their savage guests. With 
each emigrant party that arrived at Fort Laramie 
this scene was renewed ; and every day the Indians 
grew more rapacious and presumptuous. One even- 
ing they broke in pieces, out of mere wantonness, 
the cups from which they had been feasted ; and this 
so exasperated the emigrants that many of them 
seized their rifles and could scarcely be restrained 
from firing on the insolent mob of Indians. Before 
we left the country this dangerous spirit on the part 
of the Dahcotah had mounted to a yet higher pitch. 
They began openly to threaten the emigrants with 
destruction, and actually fired upon one or two 
parties of them. A military force and military law 
are urgently called for in that perilous region; and 
unless troops are speedily stationed at Fort Laramie, 
or elsewhere in the neighborhood, both emigrants 
and other travellers will be exposed to most imminent 
risks. 

The Ogillallah, the Brul^, and the other western 
bands of the Dahcotah or Sioux, are thorough sav- 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 135 

ages, unchanged by any contact with civilization. 
Not one of them can speak a European tongue, or has 
ever visited an American settlement. Until within 
a year or two, when the emigrants began to pass 
through their country on the way to Oregon, they 
had seen no whites, except the few employed about 
the Fur Company's posts. They thought them a 
wise people, inferior only to themselves, living in 
leather lodges, like their own, and subsisting on 
buffalo. But when the swarm of 3Ieneaska, with 
their oxen and wagons, began to invade them, their 
astonishment was unbounded. They could scarcely 
believe that the earth contained such a multitude of 
white men. Their wonder is now giving way to 
indignation ; and the result, unless vigilantly guarded 
against, may be lamentable in the extreme. 

But to glance at the interior of a lodge. Shaw 
and I used often to visit them. Indeed, we spent 
most of our evenings in the Indian village, Shaw's 
assumption of the medical character giving us a fair 
pretext. As a sample of the rest I will describe one 
of these visits. The sun had just set, and the horses 
were driven into the corral. The Prairie Cock, a 
noted beau, came in at the gate with a bevy of young 
girls, with whom he began a dance in the area, lead- 
ing them round and round in a circle, while he jerked 
up from his chest a succession of monotonous sounds, 
to which they kept time in a rueful chant. Outside 
the gate boys and young men were idly frolicking ; 
and close by, looking grimly upon them, stood a 



136 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

warrior in his robe, with his face painted jet-black, 
in token that lie had lately taken a Pawnee scalp. 
Passing, these, the tall dark lodges rose between us 
and the red western sky. We repaired at once to 
the lodge of Old Smoke himself. It was by no 
means better than the others; indeed, it was rather 
shabby: for in this democratic community the chief 
never assumes superior state. Smoke sat cross- 
legged on a buffalo-robe, and his grunt of salutation 
as we entered was unusually cordial, out of respect 
no doubt to Shaw's medical character. Seated 
around the lodge were several squaws, and an abun- 
dance of children. The complaint of Shaw's patients 
was, for the most part, a severe inflammation of the 
eyes, occasioned by exposure to the sun, a species of 
disorder which he treated with some success. He 
had brought with him a homoeopathic medicine-chest, 
and was, I presume, the first who introduced that 
harmless system of treatment among the Ogillallah. 
No sooner had a robe been spread at the head of the 
lodge for our accommodation, and we had seated 
ourselves upon it, than a patient made her appear- 
ance: the chief's daughter herself, who, to do her 
justice, was the best-looking girl in the village. 
Being on excellent terms with the physician, she 
placed herself readily under his hands, and submitted 
with a good grace to his applications, laughing in 
his face during the whole process, for a squaw hardly 
knows how to smile. This case despatched, another 
of a different kind succeeded. A hideous, emaciated 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 137 

old woman sat in the darkest corner of the lodge, 
rocking to and fro with pain, and hiding her eyes 
from the light hj pressing the palms of both hands 
against her face. At Smoke's command she came 
forward, very unwillingly, and exhibited a pair of 
eyes that had nearly disappeared from excess of 
inflammation. No sooner had the doctor fastened 
his grip upon her, than she set up a dismal moaning, 
and writhed so in his grasp that he lost all patience ; 
but being resolved to carry his point, he succeeded 
at last in applying his favorite remedies. 

"It is strange," he said, when the operation was 
finished, "that I forgot to bring any Spanish flies 
with me ; we must have something here to answer for 
a counter-irritant." 

So, in the absence of better, he seized upon a red- 
hot brand from the fire, and clapped it against the 
temple of the old squaw, who set up an unearthly 
howl, at which the rest of the family broke into a 
laugh. 

During these medical operations Smoke's eldest 
squaw entered the lodge, with a mallet in her hand, 
the stone head of which, precisely like those some- 
times ploughed up in the fields of New England, was 
made fast to the handle by a covering of raw hide. 
I had observed some time before a litter of well- 
grown black puppies, comfortably nestled among 
some buffalo-robes at one side; but this new-comer 
speedily disturbed their enjoyment; for seizing one 
of them by the hind paw, she dragged him out, and 



138 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

carrying him to the entrance of the lodge, hammered 
him on the head till she killed him. Conscious to 
what this preparation tended, I looked through a 
hole in the back of the lodge to see the next steps of 
the process. The squaw, holding the puppy by the 
legs, was swinging him to and fro through the blaze 
of a fire, until the hair was singed off. This done, 
she unsheathed her knife and cut him into small 
pieces, which she dropped into a kettle to boil. In 
a few moments a large wooden dish was set before 
us, filled with this delicate preparation. A dog-feast 
is the greatest compliment a Dahcotah can offer to 
his guest; and, knowing that to refuse eating would 
be an affront, we attacked the little dog, and devoured 
him before the eyes of his unconscious parent. Smoke 
in the mean time was preparing his great pipe. It 
was lighted when we had finished our repast, and we 
passed it from one to another till the bowl was empty. 
This done, we took our leave without farther cere- 
mony, knocked at the gate of the fort, and, after 
making ourselves known, were admitted. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE WAR-PARTIES. 

The summer of 1846 was a season of warlike excite- 
ment among all the western bands of the Dahcotah. 
In 1845 they encountered great reverses. Many 
war-parties had been sent out; some of them had 
been cut off, and others had returned broken and 
disheartened ; so that the whole nation was in mourn- 
ing. Among the rest, ten warriors had gone to the 
Snake country, led by the son of a prominent Ogil- 
lallah chief, called The Whirlwind. In passing over 
Laramie Plains they encountered a superior number 
of their enemies, were surrounded, and killed to a 
man. Having performed this exploit, the Snakes 
became alarmed, dreading the resentment of the 
Dahcotah; and they hastened therefore to signify 
their wish for peace by sending the scalp of the slain 
partisan, with a small parcel of tobacco attached, to 
his tribesmen and relations. They had employed old 
Vaskiss, the trader, as their messenger, and the scalp 
was the same that hung in our room at the fort. But 
The Whirlwind proved inexorable. Though his 
character hardly corresponds with his name, he is 
nevertheless an Indian, and hates the Snakes with 



140 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

his whole soul. Long before the scalp arrived, he 
had made his preparations for revenge. He sent 
messengers with presents and tobacco to all the 
Dahcotah within three hundred miles, proposing a 
grand combination to chastise the Snakes, and nam- 
ing a place and time of rendezvous. The plan was 
readily adopted, and at this moment many villages, 
probably embracing in the whole five or six thousand 
souls, were slowly creeping over the prairies and 
tending towards the common centre at "La Bontd's 
camp," on the Platte. Here their warlike rites were 
to be celebrated with more than ordinary solemnity, 
and a thousand warriors, as it was said, were to set 
out for the enemy's coantry. The characteristic 
result of this preparation will appear in the sequel. 

I was greatly rejoiced to hear of it. I had come 
into the country chiefly with a view of observing the 
Indian character. To accomplish my purpose it was 
necessary to live in the midst of them, and become, 
as it were, one of them. I jjroposed to join a village, 
and make myself an inmate of one of their lodges ; 
and henceforward this narrative, so far as I am con- 
cerned, will be chiefly a record of the progress of 
this design, and the unexpected impediments that 
opposed it. 

We resolved on no account to miss the rendezvous 
at "La Bontd's camp." Our plan was to leave 
Deslauriers at the fort, in charge of our equipage and 
the better part of our horses, while we took with us 
notliing but our weapons and the worst animals we 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 141 

had. In all probability, jealousies and quarrels 
would arise among so many hordes of fierce impul- 
sive savages, congregated together under no common 
head, and many of them strangers from remote 
prairies and mountains. We were bound in common 
prudence to be cautious how we excited any feeling 
of cupidity. This was our plan ; but unhappily we 
were not destined to visit " La Bontc's camp " in this 
manner, for one morning a young Indian came to the 
fort and brought us evil tidings. The new-comer 
was an aiTant dandy. His ugly face was painted 
with vermilion; on his head fluttered the tail of a 
prairie-cock (a large species of pheasant, not found, 
as I have heard, eastward of the Rocky Mountains) ; 
in his ears were hung pendants of shell, and a flam- 
ing red blanket was wrapped around him. He carried 
a dragoon-sword in his hand, solely for display, since 
the knife, the arrow, and the rifle are the arbiters of 
every prairie fight; but as no one in this country 
goes abroad unarmed, the dandy carried a bow and 
arrows in an otter-skin quiver at his back. In this 
guise, and bestriding his yellow horse with an air of 
extreme dignity, "The Horse," for that was his 
name, rode in at the gate, turning neither to the 
right nor the left, but casting glances askance at the 
groups of squaws who, with their mongrel progeny, 
were sitting in the sun before their doors. The evil 
tidings brought by " The Horse " were of the follow- 
ing import: The squaw of Henry Chatillon, a woman 
with whom he had been connected for years by the 



142 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

strongest ties wliich in that country exist between 
the sexes, was dangerously ill. She and her chil- 
dren were in the village of The Whirlwind, at the 
distance of a few days' journey. Henry was anxious 
to see the woman before she died, and provide for 
the safety and support of his children, of whom he 
was extremely fond. To have refused him this 
would have been inhumanity. We abandoned our 
plan of joining Smoke's village and proceeding with 
it to the rendezvous, and determined to meet The 
Whirlwind, and go in his company. 

I had been slightly ill for several weeks, but on 
the third night after reaching Fort Laramie a violent 
pain awoke me, and I found myself attacked by the 
same disorder that occasioned such heavy losses to 
the army on the Rio Grande. In a day and a half I 
was reduced to extreme weakness, so that I could 
not walk without pain and effort. Having no medi- 
cal adviser, nor any choice of diet, I resolved to 
throw myself upon Providence for recovery, using, 
without regard to the disorder, any portion of 
strength that might remain to me. So on the 
twentieth of June we set out from Fort Laramie to 
meet The Whirlwind's village. Though aided by 
the high-bowed "mountain-saddle," I could scarcely 
keep my seat on horseback. Before we left the fort 
we hired another man, a long-haired Canadian, named 
Raymond, with a face like an owl's, contrasting 
oddly enough with Deslauriers's mercurial counte- 
nance. This was not the only reinforcement to our 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 143 

party. A vagrant Indian trader, named Reynal, 
joined us, together with his squaw, Margot, and her 
two nephews, our dandy friend, "The Horse," and 
his younger brother, "The Hail-Storm." Thus 
accompanied, we betook ourselves to the prairie, 
leaving the beaten trail, and passing over the deso- 
late hills that flank the valley of Laramie Creek. In 
all, Indians and whites, we counted eight men and 
one woman. 

Reynal, the trader, the image of sleek and selfish 
complacency, carried "The Horse's" dragoon-sword 
in his hand, delighting apparently in this useless 
parade ; for, from spending half his life among Indians, 
he had caught not only their habits but their ideas. 
Margot, a female animal of more than two hundred 
pounds' weight, was couched in the basket of a 
traineau, such as I have before described; besides 
her ponderous bulk, various domestic utensils were 
attached to the vehicle, and she led by a trail-rope a 
pack-horse, which carried the covering of Reynal's 
lodge. Deslauriers walked briskly by the side of 
the cart, and Raymond came behind, swearing at the 
spare horses which it was his business to drive. The 
restless young Indians, their quivers at their backs 
and their bows in their hands, galloped over the 
hills, often starting a wolf or an antelope from the 
thick growth of wild-sage bushes. Shaw and I were 
in keeping with the rest of the rude cavalcade, 
having in the failure of other clothing adopted the 
buckskin attire of the trappers. Henry ChatiUon 



144 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

rode in advance of the whole. Thus we passed hill 
after hill and hollow after hollow, a country arid, 
broken, and so parched by the sun that none of the 
plants familiar to our more favored soil would 
flourish upon it, though there were multitudes of 
Btrange medicinal herbs, more especially the absinth, 
which covered every declivity, while cacti were 
hanging like reptiles at the edges of every ravine. 
At length we ascended a high hill, our horses tread- 
ing upon pebbles of flint, agate, and rough jasper, 
until, gaining the top, we looked down on the wild 
bottoms of Laramie Creek, which far below us wound 
like a writhing snake from side to side of the narrow 
interval, amid a growth of shattered cotton-wood and 
ash-trees. Lines of tall cliffs, white as chalk, shut 
in this green strip of woods and meadow-land, into 
which we descended and encamped for the night. In 
the morning we passed a wide grassy plain by the 
river; there was a grove in front, and beneath its 
shadows the ruins of an old trading fort of logs. 
The grove bloomed with myriads of wild roses, with 
their sweet perfume fraught with recollections of 
home. As we emerged from the trees, a rattlesnake, 
as large as a man's arm, and more than four feet 
long, lay coiled on a rock, fiercely rattling and hiss- 
ing at us ; a gray hare, twice as large as those of New 
England, leaped up from the tall ferns ; curlew flew 
screaming over our heads, and a host of little prairie- 
dogs sat yelping at us at the mouths of their burrows 
on the dry plain beyond. Suddenly an antelope 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 145 

leaped up from the wild-sage bushes, gazed eagerly 
at us, and then, erectmg his white tail, stretched 
away like a greyhound. The two Indian boys found 
a white wolf, as large as a calf, in a hollow, and, 
giving a sharp yell, they galloped after him ; but the 
wolf leaped into the stream and swam across. Then 
came the crack of a rifle, the bullet whistling harm- 
lessly over his head, as he scrambled up the steep 
declivity, rattling down stones and earth into the 
water below. Advancing a little, we beheld, on the 
farther bank of the stream, a spectacle not common 
even in that region; for, emerging from among the 
trees, a herd of some two hundred elk came out upon 
the meadow, their antlers clattering as they walked 
forward in a dense throng. Seeing us, they broke 
into a run, rushing across the opening and disappear- 
ing among the trees and scattered groves. On our 
left was a barren prairie, stretching to the horizon; 
on our right, a deep gulf, with Laramie Creek at the 
bottom. We found ourselves at length at the edge 
of a steep descent ; a narrow valley, with long rank 
grass and scattered trees stretching before us for a 
mile or more along the course of the stream. Reach- 
ing the farther end, we stopped and encamped. A 
huge old cotton-wood tree spread its branches hori- 
zontally over our tent. Laramie Creek, circling 
before our camp, half enclosed us ; it swept along the 
bottom of a line of tall white cliffs that looked down 
on us from the farther bank. There were dense 

copses on our right; the cliffs, too, were half hidden 

10 



146 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

by bushes, though behind us a few cotton- wood trees, 
dotting the green prairie, alone impeded tlie view, 
and friend or enemy could be discerned in that direc- 
tion at a mile's distance. Here we resolved to remain 
and await the arrival of The Whirlwind, who would 
certainly pass this way in his progress towards La 
Bont^'s camp. To go in search of him was not 
expedient, both on account of the broken and imprac- 
ticable nature of the country, and the uncertainty of 
his position and movements ; besides, our horses were 
almost worn out, and I was in no condition to travel. 
We had good grass, good water, tolerable fish from 
the stream, and plenty of small game, such as ante- 
lope and deer, though no buffalo. There was one 
little drawback to our satisfaction: a certain exten- 
sive tract of bushes and dried grass, just behind us, 
which it was by no means advisable to enter, since it 
sheltered a numerous brood of rattlesnakes. Henry 
Chatillon again despatched " The Horse " to the vil- 
lage, with a message to his squaw that she and her 
relatives should leave the rest and push on as rapidly 
as possible to our camp. 

Our daily routine soon became as regular as that 
of a well-ordered household. The weather-beaten old 
tree was in the centre; our rifles generally rested 
against its vast trunk, and our saddles were Hung on 
the ground around it; its distorted roots were so 
twisted as to form one or two convenient armchairs, 
where we could sit in the shade and read or smoke ; 
but meal-times became, on the whole, the most inter- 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 147 

esting hours of the day, and a bountiful provision 
was made for them. An antelope or a deer usually 
swung from a bough, and haunches were suspended 
against the trunk. That camp is daguerreotype d on 
my memory : the old tree, the white tent, with Shaw 
sleeping in the shadow of it, and Reynal's miserable 
lodge close by the bank of the stream. It was a 
wretched oven-shaped structure, made of begrimed 
and tattered buffalo-hides stretched over a frame of 
poles; one side was open, and at the side of the open- 
ing hung the powder-horn and bullet-pouch of the 
owner, together with his long red pipe, and a rich 
quiver of otter-skin, with a bow and arrows; for 
Reynal, an Indian in most things but color, chose to 
hunt buffalo with these primitive weapons. In the 
darkness of this cavern -like habitation might be dis- 
cerned Madame Margot, her overgrown bulk stowed 
away among her domestic implements, furs, robes, 
blankets, and painted cases of raw hide, in which 
dried meat is kept. Here she sat from sunrise to 
sunset, an impersonation of gluttony and laziness, 
while her affectionate proprietor was smoking, or 
begging petty gifts from us, or telling lies concern- 
ing his own achievements, or perchance engaged in 
the more profitable occupation of cooking some prepa- 
ration of prairie delicacies. Reynal was an adej)t at 
this work; he and Deslauriers have joined forces, 
and are hard at work together over the fire, while 
Raymond spreads, by way of table-cloth, a buffalo- 
hide carefully whitened with pipe-clay, on the grass 



148 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

before the tent. Here he arranges the teacups and 
plates; and then, creeping on all fours, like a dog, 
thrusts his head in at the opening of the tent. For 
a moment we see his round owlish eyes rolling wildly, 
as if the idea he came to communicate had suddenly 
escaped him ; then collecting his scattered thoughts, 
as if by an effort, he informs us that supper is ready, 
and instantly withdraws. 

When sunset came, and at that hour the wild and 
desolate scene would assume a new aspect, the horses 
were driven in. They had been grazing all day in 
the neighboring meadow, but now they were picketed 
close about the camp. As the prairie darkened we 
sat and conversed around the fire, until, becoming 
drowsy, we spread our saddles on the ground, wrapped 
our blankets around us, and lay down. We never 
placed a guard, having by this time become too indo- 
lent; but Henry Chatillon folded his loaded rifle in 
the same blanket with himself, observing that he 
always took it to bed with him when he 'camped in 
that place. Henry was too bold a man to use such a 
precaution without good cause. We had a hint now 
and then that our situation was none of the safest; 
several Crow war-parties were known to be in the 
vicinity, and one of them, that passed here some 
time before, had peeled the bark from a neighboring 
tree, and engraved upon the white wood certain 
hieroglyphics, to signify that they had invaded the 
territories of their enemies, the Dahcotah, and set 
them at defiance. One morning a thick mist covered 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 149 

the whole country. Shaw and Henry went out to 
ride, and soon came back with a startling piece of 
intelligence ; they had found within rifle-shot of our 
camp the recent trail of about thirty horsemen. They 
could not be whites, and they could not be Dahcotah, 
since Ave knew no such parties to be in the neigh- 
borhood; therefore they must be Crows. Thanks to 
that friendly mist, we had escaped a hard battle; 
they would inevitably have attacked us and our 
Indian companions had they seen our camp. What- 
ever doubts we might have entertained, were removed 
a day or two after, by two or three Dahcotah, who 
came to us with an account of having hidden in a 
ravine on that very morning, from whence they saw 
and counted the Crows ; they said that they followed 
them, carefully keeping out of sight, as they passed 
up Chugwater; that here the Crows discovered five 
dead bodies of Dahcotah, placed, according to cus- 
tom, in trees, amd flinging them to the ground, held 
their guns against them and blew them to atoms. 

If our camp were not altogether safe, still it was 
comfortable enough; at least it was so to Shaw, for I 
was tormented with illness and vexed by the delay in 
the accomplishment of my designs. When a respite 
in my disorder gave me some returning strength, I 
rode out well armed upon the prairie, or bathed with 
Shaw in the stream, or waged a petty warfare with 
the inhabitants of a neighboring prairie-dog village. 
Around our fire at night we employed ourselves in 
inveighing against the fickleness and inconstancy of 



150 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Indians, and execrating Tlie Whirlwind and all his 
crew. At last the thing grew insufferable. 

"To-morrow morning," said I, "I will start for 
the fort, and see if I can hear any news there." Late 
that evening, when the fire had sunk low, and all 
the camp were asleep, a loud cry sounded from the 
darkness. Henry leaj)ed up, recognized the voice, 
replied to it, and our dandy friend, "The Horse," 
rode in among us, just returned from his mission to 
the village. He coolly picketed his mare, without 
saying a word, sat down by the fire and began to eat, 
but his imperturbable philosophy was too much for 
our patience. Where was the village ? — about fifty 
miles south of us ; it was moving slowly, and would 
not arrive in less than a week. And where was 
Henry's squaw? — coming as fast as she could with 
Mahto-Tatonka, and the rest of her brothers, but she 
would never reach us, for she was dying, and asking 
every moment for Henry. Henry's manly face be- 
came clouded and downcast; he said that if we were 
willing he would go in the morning to find her, at 
which Shaw offered to accompany him. 

We saddled our horses at sunrise. Reynal pro- 
tested vehemently against being left alone, with 
nobody but the two Canadians and the young Indians, 
when enemies were in the neighborhood. Disregard- 
ing his complaints, we left him, and, coming to the 
mouth of Chugwater, separated, Shaw and Henry 
turning to the right, up the bank of the stream, while 
I made for the fort. 



THE AVAR-PARTIES. 151 

Taking leave for a while of my friend and the 
unfortunate squaw, I will relate by way of episode 
what I saw and did at Fort Laramie. It was not 
more than eighteen miles distant, and I reached it in 
three hours. A shrivelled little figure, wrapped 
from head to foot in a dingy white Canadian caj^ote, 
stood in the gateway, holding by a cord of bull-hide 
a shaggy wild-horse, which he had lately caught. 
His sharp prominent features, and his keen snake- 
like eyes, looked out from beneath the shadowy hood 
of the capote, which was drawn over his head like 
the cowl of a Capuchin friar. His face was like an 
old piece of leather, and his mouth spread from ear 
to ear. Extending his long wiry hand, he welcomed 
me with something more cordial than the ordinary 
cold salute of an Indian, for we were excellent friends. 
We had made an exchange of horses to our mutual 
advantage ; and Paul, thinking himself well treated, 
had declared everywhere that the white man had a 
good heart. He was a Dahcotah from the Missouri, 
a reputed son of the half-breed interpreter, Pierre 
Dorion, so often mentioned in Irving's "Astoria." 
He said that he was going to Richard's trading- 
house to sell his horse to some emigrants, who were 
encamped there, and asked me to go with him. We 
forded the stream together, Paul dragging his wild 
charge behind him. As we passed over the sandy 
plains beyond, he grew communicative. Paul was a 
cosmopolitan in his way; he had been to the settle- 
ments of the whites, and visited in peace and war 



152 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

most of the tribes within the range of a thousand 
miles. He spoke a jargon of French and another of 
English, yet nevertheless he was a thorough Indian; 
and as he told of the bloody deeds of his own people 
against their enemies, his little eyes would glitter 
with a fierce lustre. He told how the Dahcotah 
exterminated a village of the Hohays on the Upper 
Missouri, slaughtering men, women, and children; 
and how, in overwhelming force, they cut off sixteen 
of the brave Delawares, who fought like wolves to the 
last, amid the throng of their enemies. He told me 
also another story, which I did not believe until I 
had heard it confirmed from so many independent 
sources that my scepticism was almost overcome. 

Six years ago, a fellow named Jim Beckworth, a 
mongrel of French, American, and negro blood, was 
trading for the Fur Company, in a large village of 
the Crows. Jim Beckworth was last summer at St. 
Louis. He is a ruffian of the worst stamp; bloody 
and treacherous, without honor or honesty ; such at 
least is the character he bears upon the prairie. Yet 
in his case the standard rules of character fail, for 
though he will stab a man in his sleep, he will also 
perform most desperate acts of daring; such, for 
instance, as the following : While he was in the Crow 
village, a Blackfoot war-party, between thirty and 
forty in number, came stealing through the coun- 
try, killing stragglers and carrying off horses. The 
Crow warriors got upon their trail and pressed them 
so closely that they could not escape, at which the 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 153 

Blackfeet, throwing up a semi-circular breastwork of 
logs at the foot of a precipice, coolly awaited their 
approach. The logs and sticks, piled four or five 
feet high, protected them in front. The Crows might 
have swept over the breastwork and exterminated 
their enemies; but though outnumbering them ten- 
fold, they did not dream of storming the little forti- 
fication. Such a proceeding would be altogether 
repugnant to their notions of warfare. Whooping 
and yelling, and jumping from side to side like 
devils incarnate, they showered bullets and arrows 
upon the logs ; not a Blackfoot was hurt, but several 
Crows, in spite of their leaping and dodging, were 
shot down. In this childish manner, the fight went 
on for an hour or two. Now and then a Crow war- 
rior in an ecstasy of valor and vainglory would 
scream forth his war-song, boast himself the bravest 
and greatest of mankind, grasp his hatchet, rush up, 
strike it upon the breastwork, and then, as he 
retreated to his companions, fall dead under a shower 
of arrows ; yet no combined attack was made. The 
Blackfeet remained secure in their intrenchment. 
At last Jim Beckworth lost patience. 

"You are all fools and old women," he said to 
the Crows ; " come with me, if any of you are brave 
enough, and I will show you how to fight." 

He threw off his trapper's frock of buckskin and 
stripped himself naked, like the Indians themselves. 
He left his rifle on the ground, took in his hand a 
small light hatchet, and ran over the prairie to the 



154 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

right, concealed by a hollow from the eyes of the 
Blackfeet. Then climbing up the rocks, he gained 
the top of the precipice behind them. Forty or fifty 
young Crow warriors followed him. By the cries 
and whoops that rose from below he knew that the 
Blackfeet were just beneath him; and running for- 
ward, he leaped down the rock into the midst of 
them. As he fell he caught one by the long loose 
hair, and dragging him down, tomahawked him ; then 
grasping another by the belt at his waist, he struck 
him also a stunning blow, and, gaining his feet, 
shouted the Crow war-cry. He swung his hatchet so 
fiercely around him that the astonished Blackfeet 
bore back and gave him room. He might, had he 
chosen, have leaped over the breastwork and escaped ; 
but this was not necessary, for with devilish yells the 
Crow warriors came dropping in quick succession 
over the rock among their enemies. The main body 
of the Crows, too, answered the cry from the 
front, and rushed up simultaneously. The convulsive 
struggle within the breastwork was frightful ; for an 
instant the Blackfeet fought and yelled like pent-up 
tigers ; but the butchery was soon complete, and the 
mangled bodies lay piled together under the preci- 
pice. Not a Blackfoot made his escape. 

As Paul finished his story we came in sight of 
Richard's Fort, a disorderly crowd of men around 
it, and an emigrant camp a little in front. 

" Now, Paul, " said I, " where are your Minnicongew 
lodges?" 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 155 

"Not come yet," said Paul; "maybe come to- 
morrow." 

Two large villages of a band of Dahcotali bad come 
three hundred miles from the Missouri, to join in the 
war, and they were expected to reach Richard's that 
morning. There was as yet no sign of their approach ; 
so pushing through a noisy, drunken crowd, I entered 
an apartment of logs and mud, the largest in the fort: 
it was full of men of various races and complexions, 
all more or less drunk. A company of California 
emigrants, it seemed, had made the discovery at this 
late day that they had encumbered themselves with 
too many supplies for their journey. A part, there- 
fore, they had thrown away, or sold at great loss to 
the traders ; but had determined to get rid of their 
very copious stock of Missouri whiskey, by drinking 
it on the spot. Here were maudlin squaws stretched 
on piles of buffalo-robes; squalid Mexicans, armed 
with bows and arrows ; Indians sedately drunk ; long- 
haired Canadians and trappers, and American back- 
woodsmen in brown homespun, the well-beloved 
pistol and bowie-knife displayed openly at their sides. 
In the middle of the room a tall, lank man, with a 
dingy broadcloth coat, was haranguing the company 
in the style of the stump orator. With one hand 
he sawed the air, and with the other clutched firmly 
a brown jug of whiskey, which he applied every 
moment to his lips, forgetting that he had drained 
the contents long ago. Richard formally introduced 
me to this personage, who was no less a man than 



156 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Colonel R , once the leader of the party. Instantly 

the colonel, seizing me, in the absence of buttons, by 
the leather fringes of mj^ frock, began to define his 
position. His men, he said, had mutinied and deposed 
him; but still he exercised over them the influence 
of a superior mind; in all but the name he was yet 
their chief. As the colonel spoke, I looked round 
on the wild assemblage, and could not help thinking 
that he was but ill fitted to conduct such men across 
the deserts to California. Conspicuous among the 
rest stood three tall young men, grandsons of Daniel 
Boone. They had clearly inherited the adventurous 
character of that prince of pioneers; but I saw no 
signs of the quiet and tranquil spirit that so remark- 
ably distinguished him. 

Fearful was the fate that, months after, overtook 
some of the members of that party. General Kearney, 
on his late return from California, brought back their 
story. They were interrupted by the deep snows 
among the mountains, and, maddened by cold and 
hunger, fed upon each other's flesh! 

I got tired of the confusion. "Come, Paul," said 
I, "we will be off." Paul sat in tlic sun, under the 
wall of the fort. He jumped up, mounted, and we 
rode towards Fort Laramie. When we reached it, a 
man came out of the gate with a pack at his back 
and a rifle on his shoulder; others were gathering 
about him, shaking him by the hand, as if taking 
leave. I thought it a strange thing that a man 
should set out alone and on foot for the prairie. I 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 157 

soon got an explanation. Perrault — this, if I recol- 
lect right, was the Canadian's name — had quarrelled 
with the bourgeois, and the fort was too hot to hold 
hitn. Bordeaux, inflated with his transient author- 
ity, had abused him, and received a blow in return. 
The men then sprang at each other, and grappled in 
the middle of the fort. Bordeaux was down in an 
instant, at the mercy of the incensed Canadian ; had 
not an old Indian, the brother of his squaw, seized 
hold of his antagonist, it would have fared ill with 
him. Perrault broke loose from the old Indian, and 
both the white men ran to their rooms for their guns ; 
but when Bordeaux, looking from his door, saw the 
Canadian, gun in hand, standing in the area and 
calling on him to come out and fight, his heart failed 
him; he chose to remain where he was. In vain the 
old Indian, scandalized by his brother-in-law's cow- 
ardice, called uj)on him to go to the prairie and fight 
it out in the white man's manner; and Bordeaux's 
own squaw, equally incensed, screamed to her lord 
and master that he was a dog and an old woman. It 
all availed nothing. Bordeaux's prudence got the 
better of his valor, and he would not stir. Perrault 
stood showering opprobrious epithets at the recreant 
bourgeois, till, growing tired of this, he made up a 
pack of dried meat, and, slinging it at his back, set 
out alone for Fort Pierre, on the Missouri, a distance 
of three hundred miles, over a desert country, full of 
hostile Indians. 

I remained in the fort that night. In the mom- 



158 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ing, as I was coming out from breakfast, talking 
with a trader named McCluskey, I saw a strange 
Indian leaning against the side of the gate. He was 
a tall, strong man, with heavy features. 

"Who is he?" I asked. 

" That 's The Whirlwind, " said McCluskey. " He 
is the fellow that made all this stir about the war. 
It 's always the way with the Sioux ; they never stop 
cutting each other's throats; it 's all they are fit for; 
instead of sitting in their lodges^ and getting robes 
to trade with us in the Avinter. If this war goes on, 
we Tl make a poor trade of it next season, I reckon." 

And this was the opinion of all the traders, who 
were vehemently opposed to the war, from the injury 
that it must occasion to their interests. The Whirl- 
wind left his village the day before to make a visit to 
the fort. His warlike ardor had abated not a little 
since he first conceived the design of avenging his 
son's death. The long and complicated preparations 
for the expedition were too much for his fickle dispo- 
sition. That morning Bordeaux fastened upon him, 
made him presents, and told him that if he went to 
war he would destroy his horses and kill no buffalo 
to trade with the white men; in short, that he was a 
fool to think of such a thing, and had better make up 
his mind to sit quietly in his lodge and smoke his 
pipe, like a wise man. The Whirlwind's purpose 
was evidently shaken; he had become tired, like a 
child, of his favorite plan. Bordeaux exultingly 
predicted that he would not go to war. My philan- 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 159 

thropy was no match for my curiosity, and I was 
vexed at the possibility that after all I might lose 
the rare opportunity of seeing the ceremonies of war. 
The Whirlwind, however, had merely thrown the 
firebrand; the conflagration was become general. All 
the western bands of the Dahcotah were bent on war; 
and, as I heard from McCluskey, six large villages 
were already gathered on a little stream, forty miles 
distant, and were daily calling to the Great Spirit to 
aid them in their enterprise. McCluskey had just 
left them, and represented them as on their way to 
La Bont^'s camp, which they would reach in a week, 
unless they should learn that there were no hiiffalo there. 
I did not like this condition, for buffalo this season 
were rare in the neighborhood. There were also the 
two Minnicongew villages that I mentioned before; 
but about noon, an Indian came from Richard's Fort 
with the news that they were quarrelling, breaking 
up, and dispersing. So much for the whiskey of the 
emigrants ! Finding themselves unable to drink the 
whole, they had sold the residue to these Indians, 
and it needed no prophet to foretell the result; a 
spark dropped into a powder-magazine would not 
have produced a quicker effect. Instantly the old 
jealousies and rivalries and smothered feuds that 
exist in an Indian village broke out into furious 
quarrels. They forgot the warlike enterprise that 
had already brought them three hundred miles. They 
seemed like ungoverned children inflamed with the 
fiercest passions of men. Several of them were stabbed 



160 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

in the drunken tumult; and in the morning they 
scattered and moved back towards the Missouri in 
small parties. I feared that, after all, the long- 
projected meeting and the ceremonies that were to 
attend it might never take place, and I should lose 
so admirable an opportunity of seeing the Indian 
under his most fearful and characteristic aspect; 
however, in foregoing this, I should avoid a very 
fair probability of being plundered and stripped, and 
it might be, stabbed or shot into the bargain. Con- 
soling myself with this reflection, I prepared to carry 
the news, such as it was, to the camp. 

I caught my horse, and to my vexation found that 
he had lost a shoe and broken his hoof against the 
rocks. Horses are shod at Fort Laramie at the 
moderate rate of three dollars a foot; so I tied 
Hendrick to a beam in the corral^ and summoned 
Roubidou, the blacksmith. Roubidou, with the hoof 
between his knees, was at work with hammer and 
file, and I was inspecting the process, when a strange 
voice addressed me. 

" Two more gone under! Well, there 's more of us 
left yet. Here 's Gingras and me off to the moun- 
tains to-morrow. Our turn will come next, I sup- 
pose. It's a hard life, anyhow!" 

I looked up and saw a man, not much more than 
five feet high, but of very square and strong propor- 
tions. In appearance he was particularly dingy; for 
his old buckskin frock was black and polished with 
time and grease, and his belt, knife, pouch, and 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 161 

powder-horn appeared to have seen the roughest 
service. The first joint of each foot was entirely 
gone, having been frozen off several winters before, 
and his moccasons were curtailed in proportion. His 
whole appearance and equipment bespoke the "free 
trapper." He had a round, ruddy face, animated 
with a spirit of carelessness and gayety not at all in 
accordance with the words he had just spoken. 

"' Two more gone,' " said I; "what do you mean 
by that?" 

" Oh, the Arapahoes have just killed two of us in 
the mountains. Old Bull-Tail has come to tell us. 
They stabbed one behind his back, and shot the other 
with his own rifle. That 's the way we live here ! I 
mean to give up trapping after this year. My squaw 
says she wants a pacing horse and some red ribbons: 
I '11 make enough beaver to get them for her, and 
then I 'm done ! I '11 go below and live on a 
farm." 

" Your bones will dry on the prairie, Rouleau ! " 
said another trapper, who was standing by ; a strong, 
brutal-looking fellow, with a face as surly as a bull- 
dog's. 

Rouleau only laughed, and began to hum a tune 
and shuffle a dance on his stumps of feet. 

"You '11 see us, before long, passing up your way," 
said the other man. 

"Well," said I, "stop and take a cup of coffee 
with us; " and, as it was late in the afternoon, I pre- 
pared to leave the fort at once. 

11 



162 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

As I rode out, a train of emigrant wagons was 
passing across the stream. "Whar are ye goin', 
stranger?" Thus I was saluted by two or three 
voices at once. 

"About eighteen miles up the creek." 

"It's mighty late to be going that far! Make 
haste, ye 'd better, and keep a bright look-out for 
Indians ! " 

I thought the advice too good to be neglected. 
Fording the stream, I passed at a round trot over 
the plains beyond. But "the more haste, the worse 
speed." I proved the truth of the proverb by the 
time I reached the hills three miles from the fort. 
The trail was faintly marked, and, riding forward 
with more rapidity than caution, I lost sight of it. I 
kept on in a direct line, guided by Laramie Creek, 
which I could see at intervals darkly glistening in the 
evening sun, at the bottom of the woody gulf on my 
right. Half an hour before sunset I came upon its 
banks. There was something exciting in the wild 
solitude of the place. An antelope sprang suddenly 
from the sage -bushes before me. As he leaped grace- 
fully not thirty yards before my horse, I fired, and 
instantly he spun round and fell. Quite sure of 
him, I walked my horse towards him, leisurely reload- 
ing my rifle, when, to my surprise, he sprang up 
and trotted rapidly away on three legs into the dark 
recesses of the hills, whither I had no time to follow. 
Ten minutes after, I was passing along the bottom 
of a deep valley, and, chancing to look behind me, I 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 163 

saw in the dim light that something was following. 
Supposing it to be a wolf, I slid from my seat and 
sat down behind my horse to shoot it; but as it came 
up, I saw by its motions that it was another antelope. 
It approached within a hundred yards, arched its 
neck, and gazed intently. I levelled at the white 
spot on its chest, and was about to fire, when it 
started off, ran first to one side and then to the other, 
like a vessel tacking against the wind, and at last 
stretched away at full speed. Then it stopped again, 
looked curiously behind it, and trotted up as before ; 
but not so boldly, for it soon paused and stood gaz- 
ing at me. I fired ; it leaped upward and fell upon 
its tracks. Measuring the distance, I found it two 
hundred and four paces. When I stood by his side, 
the antelope turned his expiring eye upward. It was 
like a beautiful woman's, dark and bright. "For- 
tunate that I am in a hurry," thought I; "I might 
be troubled with remorse, if I had time for it." 

Cutting the animal up, not in the most skilful 
manner, I hung the meat at the back of my saddle, 
and rode on again. The hills (I could not remember 
one of them) closed around me. "It is too late," 
thought I, "to go forward. I will stay here to- 
night, and look for the path in the morning." As a 
last effort, however, I ascended a high hill, from 
which, to my great satisfaction, I could see Laramie 
Creek stretching before me, twisting from side to 
side amid ragged patches of timber ; and far off, close 
beneath the shadows of the trees, the ruins of the 



164 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

old trading -fort were visible. I reached them at twi- 
light. It was far from pleasant, in that uncertain 
light, to be pushing through the dense trees and 
bushes of the grove beyond. I listened anxiously for 
the footfall of man or beast. Nothing was stirring 
but one harmless brown bird, chirping among the 
branches. I was glad when I gained the open prairie 
once more, where I could see if anything approached. 
When I came to the mouth of Chugwater, it was 
totally dark. Slackening the reins, I let my horse 
take his own course. He trotted on with unerring 
instinct, and by nine o'clock was scrambling down 
the steep descent into the meadows where we were 
encamped. While I was looking in vain for the light 
of the fire, Hendrick, with keener perceptions, gave 
a loud neigh, which was immediately answered by 
another neigh from the distance. In a moment I was 
hailed from the darkness by the voice of Reynal, 
who had come out, rifle in hand, to see who was 
approaching. 

He, with his squaw, the two Canadians, and the 
Indian boys, were the sole inmates of the camp, Shaw 
and Henry Chatillon being still absent. At noon of 
the following day they came back, their horses look- 
ing none the better for the journey. Henry seemed 
dejected. The woman was dead, and his children 
must henceforward be exposed, without a protector, 
to the hardships and vicissitudes of Indian life. 
Even in the midst of his grief he had not forgotten 
his attachment to his bourgeois, for he had procured 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 165 

among his Indian relatives two beautifully ornamented 
buffalo-robes, which he spread on the ground as a 
present to us. 

Shaw lighted his pipe, and told me in a few words 
the history of his journey. When I went to the fort 
they left me, as I mentioned, at the mouth of 
Chugwater. They followed the course of the little 
stream all day, traversing a desolate and barren 
country. Several times they came upon the fresh 
traces of a large war-party, the same, no doubt, from 
whom we had so narrowly escaped an attack. At an 
hour before sunset, without encountering a human 
being by the way, they came upon the lodges of the 
squaw and her brothers, who, in compliance with 
Henry's message, had left the Indian village, in order 
to join us at our camp. The lodges were already 
pitched, five in number, by the side of the stream. 
The woman lay in one of them, reduced to a mere 
skeleton. For some time she had been unable to 
move or speak. Indeed, nothing had kept her alive 
but the hope of seeing Henry, to whom she was 
strongly and faithfully attached. No sooner did he 
enter the lodge than she revived, and conversed with 
him the greater part of tlie night. Early in the 
morning she was lifted into a traineau^ and the whole 
party set out towards our camp. There were but 
five warriors; the rest were women and children. 
The whole were in great alarm at the proximity of 
the Crow war-party, who would certainly have killed 
them without mercy had they met. They had 



166 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

advanced only a mile or two, when they discerned a 
horseman, far off, on the edge of the horizon. They 
all stopped, gathering together in the greatest anx- 
iety, from which they did not recover until long after 
the horseman disappeared; then they set out again. 
Henry was riding with Shaw a few rods in advance 
of the Indians, when Mahto-Tatonka, a younger 
brother of the woman, hastily called after them. 
Turning back, they found all the Indians crowded 
ai'ound the trameau in which the woman was lying. 
They reached her just in time to hear the death- 
rattle in her throat. In a moment she lay dead in 
the basket of the vehicle. A complete stillness suc- 
ceeded ; then the Indians raised in concert their cries 
of lamentation over the corpse, and among them Shaw 
clearly distinguished those strange sounds resembling 
the word " Halleluyah, "' which, together with some 
other accidental coincidences, has given rise to the 
absurd notion that the Indians are descended from 
the ten lost tribes of Israel. 

The Indian usage required that Henry, as well as 
the other relatives of the woman, should make 
valuable presents, to be placed by the side of the 
body at its last resting-place. Leaving the Indians, 
he and Shaw set out for the camp, and reached it, as 
we have seen, by hard pushing, at about noon. 
Having obtained the necessary articles, they imme- 
diately returned. It was very late and quite dark 
when they again reached the lodges. They were all 
placed in a deep hollow among dreary hills. Four 



THE WAR-PARTIES. 167 

of them were just visible through the gloom, but the 
fifth and largest was illumined by the blaze of a fire 
within, glowing through the half-transparent cover- 
ing of raw hides. There was a perfect stillness as 
they approached. The lodges seemed without a 
tenant. Not a living thing was stirring; there was 
something awful in the scene. They rode up to the 
entrance of the lodge, and there was no sound but 
the tramp of their horses. A squaw came out and 
took charge of the animals, without speaking a word. 
Entering, they found the lodge crowded with Indians; 
a fire was burning in the midst, and the mourners 
encircled it in a triple row. Room was made for the 
new-comers at the head of the lodge, a robe spread 
for them to sit upon, and a pipe lighted and handed 
to them in perfect silence. Thus they passed the 
greater part of the night. At times the fire would 
subside into a heap of embers, until the dark figures 
seated around it were scarcely visible; then a squaw 
would drop upon it a piece of buffalo-fat, and a 
bright flame, instantly springing up, would reveal 
the crowd of wild faces, motionless as bronze. The 
silence continued unbroken. It was a relief to Shaw 
when daylight returned and he could escape from 
this house of mourning. He and Henry prepared to 
return homeward; first, however, they placed the 
presents they had brought near the body of the 
squaw, which, gaudily attired, remained in a sitting 
posture in one of the lodges. A fine horse was pick- 
eted not far off, destined to be killed that morning 



168 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

for the service of her spirit; for the woman was lame, 
and could not travel on foot over the dismal prairies 
to the villages of the dead. Food, too, was pro- 
vided, and household implements, for her use upon 
this last journey. 

Henry left her to the care of her relatives, and 
came immediately with Shaw to the camp. It was 
some time before he entirely recovered from his 
dejection. 



CHAPTER XI. 

SCENES AT THE CAMP. 

Reynal heard guns fired one day, at the distance 
of a mile or two from the camp. He grew nervous 
instantly. Visions of Crow war-parties began to 
haunt his imagination; and when we returned (for 
we were all absent), he renewed his complaints about 
being left alone with the Canadians and the squaw. 
The day after, the cause of the alarm appeared. 
Four trappers, called Morin, Saraphin, Rouleau, 
and Gingras, came to our camp and joined us. They 
it was who fired the guns and disturbed the dreams 
of our confederate Reynal. They soon encamped by 
our side. Their rifles, dingy and battered with hard 
service, rested with ours against the old tree; their 
strong rude saddles, their buffalo-robes, their traps, 
and the few rough and simple articles of their travel- 
ling equipment were piled near our tent. Their 
mountain-horses were turned to graze in the meadow 
among our own; and the men themselves, no less 
rough and hardy, used to lie half the day in the shade 
of our tree, lolling on the grass, lazily smoking, and 
telling stories of their adventures; and I defy the 
annals of chivalry to furnish the record of a life more 



170 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

wild and perilous than that of a Rocky Mountain 
trapper. 

With this efficient reinforcement the agitation of 
Reynal's nerves subsided. We began to conceive a 
sort of attachment to our old camping-ground ; yet it 
was time to change our quarters, since remaining too 
long on one spot must lead to unpleasant results, not 
to be borne unless in case of dire necessity. The 
grass no longer presented a smooth surface of turf; 
it was trampled into mud and clay. So we removed 
to another old tree, larger yet, that grew by the side 
of the river a furlong distant. Its trunk was full six 
feet in diameter; on one side it was marked by a 
party of Indians with various inexplicable hierogly- 
phics, commemorating some warlike enterprise, and 
aloft among the branches were the remains of a scaf- 
fold, where dead bodies had once been deposited, 
after the Indian manner. 

"There comes Bull-Bear," said Henry Chatillon, 
as we sat on the grass at dinner. Looking up, we 
saw several horsemen coming over the neighboring 
hill, and in a moment four stately young men rode 
up and dismounted. One of them was Bull-Bear, or 
Mahto-Tatonka, a compound name which he inherited 
from his father, the principal chief in the Ogillallah 
band. One of his brothers and two other young men 
accompanied him. We shook hands with the visitors, 
and when we had finished our meal — for this is the 
approved manner of entertaining Indians, even the 
best of them — we handed to each a tin cup of coffee 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 171 

and a biscuit, at which they ejaculated from the 
bottom of their throats, "How! how!" a monosyl- 
hible by which an Indian contrives to express half 
the emotions of which he is susceptible. Then we 
lighted the pipe, and passed it to them as they 
squatted on the ground. 
" Where is the village ? " 

"There," said Mahto-Tatonka, pointing south- 
ward; "it will come in two days." 
"Will they go to the war?" 
"Yes." 

No man is a philanthropist on the prairie. We 
welcomed this news cordially, and congratulated our- 
selves that Bordeaux's interested efforts to divert The 
Whirlwind from his congenial vocation of bloodshed 
had failed of success, and that no further obstacles 
would interpose between us and our plan of repair- 
ing to the rendezvous at La Bont^'s camp. 

For that and several succeeding days, Mahto- 
Tatonka and his friends remained our guests. They 
devoured the relics of our meals ; they filled the j^ipe 
for us, and also helped us to smoke it. Sometimes 
they stretched themselves side by side in the shade, 
indulging in raillery and equivocal jokes, ill becom- 
ing the dignity of brave and aspiring warriors, such 
as two of them in reality were. 

Two daj'S dragged away, and on the morning of 
the third we hoped confidently to see the Indian vil- 
lage. It did not come ; so we rode out to look for it. 
In place of the eight hundred Indians we expected, 



172 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

we met one solitary savage riding towards us over the 
prairie, who told us that the Indians had changed 
their plan, and would not come within three days. 
Taking along Avith us this messenger of evil tidings, 
we retraced our footsteps to the camp, amusing our- 
selves by the way with execrating Indian incon- 
stancy. When we came in sight of our little white 
tent under the big tree, we saw that it no longer 
stood alone. A huge old lodge was erected by its 
side, discolored by rain and storms, rotten with age, 
with the uncouth figures of horses and men and out- 
stretched hands that were painted upon it wellnigh 
obliterated. The long poles which supported this 
squalid habitation thrust themselves rakishly out 
from its pointed top, and over its entrance were sus- 
pended a "medicine-pipe" and various other imple- 
ments of the magic art. While we were yet at a 
distance, we observed a greatly increased population 
of various colors and dimensions, swarming about 
our quiet encampment. Morin, the trapper, having 
been absent for a day or two, had returned, it seemed, 
bringing all his family with him. He had taken to 
himself a wife, for whom he had paid the established 
price of one horse. This looks cheap at first sight, 
but in truth the purchase of a squaw is a transaction 
which no man should enter into without mature 
deliberation, since it involves not only the payment 
of the price, but the burden of feeding and support- 
ing a rapacious horde of the bride's relatives, who 
hold themselves entitled to feed upon the indiscreet 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 173 

white man. They gather about him like leeches, 
and drain him of all he has. 

Morin had not made an aristocratic match. His 
bride's relatives occupied but a contemptible position 
in Ogillallah society; for among these democrats of 
the prairie, as among others more civilized, there 
are virtual distinctions of rank and place. Morin's 
pai'tner was not the most beautiful of her sex, and 
he had the bad taste to array her in an old calico 
gown, bought from an emigrant woman, instead of 
the neat tunic of whitened deer-skin usually worn by 
the squaws. The moving spirit of the establishment 
was an old hag of eighty. Human imagination never 
conceived hobgoblin or witch more ugly than she. 
You could count all her ribs through the wrinkles of 
her leathery skin. Her withered face more resembled 
an old skull than the countenance of a living being, 
even to the hollow, darkened sockets, at the bottom 
of which glittered her little black eyes. Her arms 
had dwindled into nothing but whip-cord and wire. 
Her hair, half black, half gray, hung in total neglect 
nearly to the ground, and her sole garment consisted 
of the remnant of a discarded buffalo-robe tied round 
her waist with a string of hide. Yet the old squaw's 
meagre anatomy was wonderfully strong. She pitched 
the lodge, packed the horses, and did the hardest 
labor of the camp. From morning till night she 
bustled about the lodge, screaming like a screech- 
owl when anything displeased her. Her brother, a 
"medicine-man," or magician, was equally gaunt 



174 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and sinewy with herself. His mouth spread from 
ear to ear, and his appetite, as we had occasion to 
learn, was ravenous in proportion. The other in- 
mates of the lodge were a young bride and bride- 
groom, the latter one of those idle, good-for-nothing 
fellows who infest an Indian village as well as more 
civilized communities. He was fit neither for hunt- 
ing nor war, as one might see from the stolid unmean- 
ing expression of his face. The happy pair had just 
entered upon the honeymoon. They would stretch a 
buffalo-robe upon poles, to protect them from the 
rays of the sun, and spreading under it a couch of 
furs, would sit affectionately side by side for half the 
day, though I could not discover that much conver- 
sation passed between them. Probably they had 
nothing to say ; for an Indian's supply of topics for 
conversation is far from being copious. There were 
half a dozen children, too, playing and whooping 
about the camp, shooting birds with little bows and 
arrows, or making miniature lodges of sticks, as 
children of a different complexion build houses of 
blocks. 

A day passed, and Indians began rapidly to come 
in. Parties of two, three, or more would ride up 
and silently seat themselves on the grass. The 
fourth day came at last, when about noon horsemen 
appeared in view on the summit of the neighboring 
ridge. Behind followed a wild procession, hurrying 
in haste and disorder down the hill and over the 
plain below; horses, mules, and dogs; heavily- 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 175 

burdened traineaux., mounted warriors, squaws walk- 
ing amid the throng, and a host of children. For a 
full half-hour they continued to pour down; and 
keeping directly to the bend of the stream, within a 
furlong of us, they soon assembled there, a dark and 
confused throng, until, as if by magic, a hundred 
and fifty tall lodges sprang up. The lonely plain 
was transformed into the site of a swarming encamp- 
ment. Countless horses were soon grazing over the 
meadows around us, and the prairie was animated by 
restless figures careering on horseback, or sedately 
stalking in their long white robes. The Whirlwind 
was come at last. One question yet remained to be 
answered : " Will he go to the war in order that we, 
with so respectable an escort, may pass over to the 
somewhat perilous rendezvous at La Bont^'s camp?" 

This still remained in doubt. Characteristic inde- 
cision perplexed their councils. Indians cannot act 
in large bodies. Though their object be of the 
highest importance, they cannot combine to attain it 
by a series of connected efforts. King Philip, 
Pontiac, and Tecumseh, all felt this to their cost. 
The Ogillallah once had a war-chief who could con- 
trol them ; but he was dead, and now they were left 
to the sway of their own unsteady impulses. 

As this Indian village and its inhabitants will hold 
a prominent place in the rest of the story, perhaps it 
may not be amiss to glance for an instant at the sav- 
age people of which they form a part. The Dahcotah 
or Sioux range over a vast territory, from the river 



176 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

St. Peter to the Rocky Mountains. They are divided 
into several independent bands, united under no 
central government, and acknowledging no common 
head. The same language, usages, and superstitions 
form the sole bond between them. They do not 
unite even in their wars. The bands of the east fight 
the Ojibwas on the Upper Lakes; those of the west 
make incessant war upon the Snake Indians in the 
Rocky Mountains. As the whole people is divided 
into bands, so each band is divided into villages. 
Each village has a chief, who is honored and obeyed 
only so far as his personal qualities may command 
respect and fear. Sometimes he is a mere nominal 
chief; sometimes his authority is little short of abso- 
lute, and his fame and influence reach beyond his 
own village, so that the whole band to which he 
belongs is ready to acknowledge him as their head. 
This was, a few years since, the case with the Ogil- 
lallah. Courage, address, and enterprise may raise 
any warrior to the highest honor, especially if he be 
the son of a former chief, or a member of a numerous 
family, to support him and avenge his quarrels ; but 
when he has reached the dignity of chief, and the old 
men and warriors, by a peculiar ceremony, have 
formally installed him, let it not be imagined that he 
assumes any of the outward signs of rank and honor. 
He knows too well on how frail a tenure he holds his 
station. He must conciliate his uncertain subjects. 
Many a man in the village lives better, owns more 
squaws and more horses, and goes better clad than 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 177 

he. Like the Teutonic chiefs of old, he ingratiates 
himself with his young men by making them presents, 
thereby often impoverishing himself. If he fails to 
gain their favor, they will set his authority at naught, 
and may desert him at any moment; for the usages 
of his people have provided no means of enforcing 
his authority. Veiy seldom does it happen, at least 
among these western bands, that a chief attains to 
much power, unless he is the head of a numerous 
family. Frequently the village is principally made 
up of his relatives and descendants, and the wan- 
dering community assumes much of the patriarchal 
character. 

The western Dahcotah have no fixed habitations. 
Hunting and fighting, they wander incessantly, 
through summer and winter. Some follow the herds 
of buffalo over the waste of prairie ; others traverse 
the Black Hills, thronging, on horseback and on 
foot, through the dark gulfs and sombre gorges, and 
emerging at last upon the "Parks," those beautiful 
but most perilous hunting-grounds. The buffalo 
supplies them with the necessaries of life; with 
habitations, food, clothing, beds, and fuel; strings 
for their bows, glue, thread, cordage, trail-ropes 
for their horses, coverings for their saddles, vessels 
to hold water, boats to cross streams, and the means 
of purchasing all that they want from the traders. 
When the buffalo are extinct, the}^ too must dwindle 
away. 

War is the breath of their nostrils. Against most 
12 



178 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

of the neighboring tribes they cherish a rancorous 
hatred, transmitted from father to son, and inflamed 
by constant aggression and retaliation. Many times 
a year, in every village, the Great Spirit is called 
upon, fasts are made, the war-parade is celebrated, 
and the warriors go out by handfuls at a time against 
the enemy. This fierce spirit awakens their most 
eager aspirations, and calls forth their greatest ener- 
gies. It is chiefly this that saves them from lethargy 
and utter abasement. Without its powerful stimulus 
they would be like the un warlike tribes beyond the 
mountains, scattered among the caves and rocks like 
beasts, and living on roots and reptiles. These latter 
have little of humanity except the form; but the 
proud and ambitious Dahcotah warrior can sometimes 
boast heroic virtues. It is seldom that distinction 
and influence are attained among them by any other 
course than that of arms. Their superstition, how- 
ever, sometimes gives great power to those among 
them who pretend to the character of magicians ; and 
their orators, such as they are, have their share of 
honor. 

But to return. Look into our tent, or enter, if 
you can bear the stifling smoke and the close air. 
There, wedged close together, you will see a circle 
of stout warriors, passing the pipe around, joking, 
telling stories, and making themselves merry after 
their fashion. We were also infested by little 
copper-colored naked bo3'S and snake-eyed girls. 
They would come up to us, muttering certain words, 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 179 

which being interpreted conveyed the concise invita- 
tion, "Come and eat." Then we would rise, cursing 
the pertinacity of Dahcotah hospitality, which allowed 
scarcely an hour of rest between sun and sun, and to 
which we were bound to do honor, unless we would 
offend our entertainers. This necessity was particu- 
larly burdensome to me, as I was scarcely able to 
walk, from the effects of illness, and was poorly 
qualified to dispose of twenty meals a day. So 
bounteous an entertainment looks like an outgushing 
of goodwill ; but, doubtless, half at least of our kind 
hosts, had they met us alone and unarmed on the 
prairie, would have robbed us of our horses, and 
perhaps have bestowed an arrow upon us besides. 

One morning we were summoned to the lodge of 
an old man, the Nestor of his tribe. We found him 
half sitting, half reclining, on a pile of buffalo-robes ; 
his long hair, jet-black, though he had seen some 
eighty winters, hung on either side of his thin features. 
His gaunt but symmetrical frame did not more clearly 
exhibit the Avreck of bj'gone strength, than did his 
dark, wasted features, still prominent and command- 
ing, bear the stamp of mental energies. Opposite 
the patriarch was his nephew, the young aspirant 
Mahto-Ta tonka ; and besides these, there were one 
or two women in the lodge. 

The old man's story is peculiar, and illustrative of 
a superstition that prevails in full force among many 
of the Indian tribes. He was one of a powerful 
family, renowned for warlike exploits. When a 



180 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

very young man, he submitted to the singular rite to 
which most of the tribe subject themselves before 
entering upon life. He painted his face black ; then 
seeking out a cavern in a sequestered part of the 
Black Hills, he lay for several days, fasting, and 
praying to the spirits. In the dreams and visions 
produced by his weakened and excited state, he 
fancied, like all Indians, that he saw supernatural 
revelations. Again and again the form of an ante- 
lope appeared before him. The antelope is the grace- 
ful peace spirit of the Ogillallah; but seldom is it 
that such a gentle visitor presents itself during the 
initiatory fasts of their young men. The terrible 
grizzly bear, the divinity of war, usually appears to 
fire them with martial ardor and thirst for renown. 
At length the antelope spoke. It told the young 
dreamer that he was not to follow the path of war; 
that a life of peace and tranquillity was marked out 
for him; that thenceforward he was to guide the 
people by his counsels, and protect them from the 
evils of their own feuds and dissensions. Others 
were to gain renown by fighting the enemy; but 
greatness of a different kind was in store for him. 
The visions beheld during the period of this fast 
usually determine the whole course of the dreamer's 
life. From that time, Le Borgne, which was the only 
name by which we knew him, abandoned all thoughts 
of war, and devoted himself to the labors of peace. 
He told his vision to the people. They honored his 
commission and respected him in his novel capacity. 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 181 

A far different man was his brother, Mahto- 
Tatonka, who had left his name, his features, and 
many of his qualities, to his son. He was the father 
of Henry Chatillon's squaw, a circumstance which 
proved of some advantage to us, as it secured the 
friendship of a family perhaps the most noted and 
influential in the whole Ogillallah band; Mahto- 
Tatonka, in his way, was a hero. No chief could 
vie with him in warlike renown, or in power over 
his people. He had a fearless spirit, and an impetu- 
ous and inflexible resolution. His will was law. He 
was politic and sagacious, and with true Indian craft, 
always befriended the whites, knowing that he might 
thus reap great advantages for himself and his adhe- 
rents. When he had resolved on any course of con- 
duct, he would pay to the warriors the compliment 
of calling them together to deliberate upon it, and 
when their debates were over, quietly state his own 
opinion, which no one ever disputed. It fared hard 
with those who incurred his displeasure. He would 
strike them or stab them on the spot ; and this act, 
which, if attempted by any other chief would have 
cost him his life, the awe inspired by his name enabled 
him to repeat again and again with impunity. In a 
community where, from immemorial time, no man 
has acknowledged any law but his own will, Mahto- 
Tatonka raised himself to power little short of despotic. 
His career came at last to an end. He had a host 
of enemies patiently biding their time ; and our old 
friend Smoke in particular, together with all his 



182 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

kinsmen, hated him cordially. Smoke sat one day 
in his lodge, in the midst of his own village, when 
Mahto-Tatonka entered it alone, and approaching 
the dwelling of his enemy, challenged him in a loud 
voice to come out, and fight. Smoke would not 
move. At this, Mahto-Tatonka proclaimed him a 
coward and an old woman, and, striding to the 
entrance of the lodge, stabbed the chief's best horse, 
which was picketed there. Smoke was daunted, and 
even this insult failed to bring him out. Mahto- 
Tatonka moved haughtily away; all made way for 
him; but his hour of reckoning was near. 

One hot day, five or six years ago, numerous 
lodges of Smoke's kinsmen were gathered about 
some of the Fur Company's men, who were trading 
in various articles with them, whiskey among the 
rest. Mahto-Tatonka was also there with a few of 
his people. As he lay in his own lodge, a fray arose 
between his adherents and the kinsmen of his enemy. 
The war-whoop was raised, bullets and arrows began 
to fly, and the camp was in confusion. The chief 
sprang up, and rushing in a fury from the lodge, 
shouted to the combatants on both sides to cease. 
Instantly — for the attack was preconcerted — came 
the reports of two or tliree guns, and the twanging 
of a dozen bows, and the savage hero, mortally 
wounded, pitched forward headlong to the ground. 
Rouleau was present, and told me the particulars. 
The tumult became general, and was not quelled 
until several had fallen on both sides. When we 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 183 

were in the country the feud between the two 
families was still rankling. 

Thus died Mahto-Tatonka ; but he left behind him 
a goodly army of descendants, to perpetuate his 
renown and avenge his fate. Besides daughters, he 
had thirty sons, a number which need not stagger the 
credulity of those acquainted with Indian usages and 
j)ractices. We saw many of them, all marked by 
the same dark complexion, and the same peculiar 
cast of features. Of these, our visitor, young Mahto- 
Tatonka, was the eldest, and some reported him as 
likely to succeed to his father's honors. Though he 
appeared not more than twenty-one years old, he had 
oftener struck the enemy, and stolen more horses and 
more squaws, than any young man in the village. 
Horse-stealing is well known as an avenue to distinc- 
tion on the prairies, and the other kind of depreda- 
tion is esteemed equally meritorious. Not that the 
act can confer fame from its own intrinsic merits. 
Any one can steal a squaw, and if he chooses after- 
wards to make an adequate present to her rightful 
proprietor, the easy husband for the most part rests 
content, his vengeance falls asleep, and all danger 
from that quarter is averted. Yet this is regarded 
as a pitiful and mean-spirited transaction. The 
danger is averted, but the glory of the achievement 
also is lost. Mahto-Tatonka proceeded after a more 
dashing fashion. Out of several dozen squaws whom 
he had stolen, he could boast that he had never paid 
for one, but snapping his fingers in the face of the 



184 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

injured husband, had defied the extremity of his 
indignation, and no one yet had dared to lay the 
finger of violence upon him. He was following close 
in the footsteps of his father. The young men and 
the young squaws, each in their way, admired him. 
The former would always follow him to war, and he 
was esteemed to have an unrivalled charm in the 
eyes of the latter. Perhaps his impunity may excite 
some wonder. An arrow-shot from a ravine, or a 
stab given in the dark, require no great valor, and 
are especially suited to the Indian genius ; but Mahto- 
Tatonka had a strong protection. It was not alone 
his courage and audacious will that enabled him to 
career so dashingly among his compeers. His ene- 
mies did not forget that he was one of thirty warlike 
brethren, all growing up to manhood. Should they 
wreak their anger upon him, many keen eyes would 
be ever upon them, and many fierce hearts thirst for 
their blood. The avenger would dog their footsteps 
everywhere. To kill Mahto-Tatonka would be an 
act of suicide. 

Though he found such favor in the eyes of the 
fair, he was no dandy. He was indifferent to the 
gaudy trappings and ornaments of his companions, 
and was content to rest his chances of success upon 
his own warlike merits. He never arrayed himself 
in gaudy blanket and glittering necklaces, but left 
his statue-like form, limbed like an Apollo of bronze, 
to win its way to favor. His voice was singularly 
deep and strong, and sounded from his chest like the 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 185 

deep notes of an organ. Yet, after all, he was but an 
Indian. See him as he lies there in the sun before 
onr tent, kicking his heels in the air and cracking 
jokes with his brother. Does he look like a hero? 
See him now in the hour of his glory, when at sunset 
the whole village empties itself to behold him, for 
to-morrow their favorite young partisan goes out 
against the enemy. His head-dress is adorned with 
a crest of the war-eagle's feathers, rising in a waving 
ridge above his brow, and sweeping far behind him. 
His round white shield hangs at his breast, with 
feathers radiating from the centre like a star. His 
quiver is at his back ; his tall lance in his hand, the 
iron point flashing against the declining sun, while 
the long scalp-locks of his enemies flutter from the 
shaft. Thus, gorgeous as a champion in panoply, he 
rides round and round within the great circle of 
lodges, balancing with a graceful buoyancy to the 
free movements of his war-horse, while with a sedate 
brow he sings his song to the Great Spirit. Young 
rival warriors look askance at him ; vermilion-cheeked 
girls gaze in admiration ; boys whoop and scream in 
a thrill of delight, and old women yell forth his name 
and proclaim his praises from lodge to lodge. 

INIahto-Tatonka was the best of all our Indian 
friends. Hour after hour, and day after day, when 
swarms of savages of every age, sex, and degree 
beset our camp, he would lie in our tent, his lynx- 
eye ever open to guard ovir property from pillage. 

The Whirlwind invited us one day to his lodge. 



186 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

The feast was finished, and the pipe began to circu- 
late. It was a remarkably large and fine one, and I 
expressed admiration of it. 

"If the Meneaska likes the pipe," asked The 
Whirlwind, "why does he not keep it?" 

Such a pipe among the Ogillallah is valued at the 
price of a horse. The gift seemed worthy of a chief- 
tain and a warrior; but The Whirlwind's generosity 
rose to no such pitch. He gave me the pipe, confi- 
dently expecting that I in return would make him 
a present of equal or superior value. This is the 
implied condition of every gift among the Indians, 
and should it not be complied with, the present is 
usually reclaimed. So I arranged upon a gaudy 
calico handkerchief an assortment of vermilion, 
tobacco, knives, and gunpowder, and summoning the 
chief to camp, assured him of my friendship, and 
begged his acceptance of a slight token of it. Ejacu- 
lating, "How! how! " he folded up the offerings and 
withdrew to his lodge. 

Late one afternoon a party of Indians on horseback 
came suddenly in sight from behind some clumps of 
bushes that lined the bank of the stream, leading 
with them a mule, on whose back was a wretched 
negro, sustained in his seat by the high pommel and 
can tie of the Indian saddle. His cheeks were shrunken 
in the hollow of his jaws ; his eyes were unnaturally 
dilated, and his lips shrivelled and drawn back from 
his teeth like those of a corpse. When they brought 
him before our tent, and lifted him from the saddle, 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 187 

he could not walk or stand, but crawled a short dis- 
tance, and with a look of utter misery sat down on 
the grass. All the children and women came pour- 
ing out of the lodges, and with screams and cries 
made a circle about him, while he sat supporting 
himself with his hands, and looking from side to side 
with a vacant stare. The wretch was starving to 
death. For thirty-three days he had wandered alone 
on the prairie, without weapon of any kind; without 
shoes, moccasons, or any other clothing than an old 
jacket and trousers; without intelligence to guide 
his course, or any knowledge of the productions of 
the prairie. All this time he had subsisted on 
crickets and lizards, wild onions, and three eggs 
which he found in the nest of a prairie-dove. He had 
not seen a human being. Bewildered in the bound- 
less, hopeless desert that stretched around him, he 
had walked on in despair, till he could walk no 
longer, and then crawled on his knees, till the bone 
was laid bare. He chose the night for travelling, 
lying down by day to sleep in the glaring sun, always 
dreaming, as he said, of the broth and corn-cake he 
used to eat under his old master's shed in Missouri. 
Every man in the camp, both white and red, was 
astonished at his escape not only from starvation, but 
from the grizzly bears, which abound in that neigh- 
borhood, and the wolves which howled around him 
every night. 

Reynal recognized him the moment the Indians 
brought him in. He had run away from his master 



188 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

about a year before and joined the party of Richard, 
who was then leaving the frontier for the mountains. 
He had lived with Richard until, at the end of IMay, 
he with Reynal and several other men went out in 
search of some stray horses, when he was separated 
from the rest in a storm, and had never been heard 
of to this time. Knowing his inexperience and help- 
lessness, no one dreamed that he could still be living. 
The Indians had found him lying exhausted on the 
ground. 

As he sat there, with the Indians gazing silently 
on him, his haggard face and glazed eye were dis- 
gusting to look upon. Deslauriers made him a bowl 
of gruel, but he suffered it to remain untasted before 
him. At length he languidly raised the spoon to his 
lips ; again he did so, and again ; and then his appe- 
tite seemed suddenly inflamed into madness, for he 
seized the bowl, swallowed all its contents in a few 
seconds, and eagerly demanded meat. This we 
refused, telling him to wait until morning; but he 
begged so eagerly that we gave him a small piece, 
which he devoured, tearing it like a dog. He said 
he must have more. We told him that his life was 
in danger if he ate so immoderately at first. He as- 
sented, and said he knew he was a fool to do so, but 
he must have meat. This we absolutely refused, to 
the great indignation of the senseless squaws, who, 
when we were not watching him, would slyly bring 
dried meat and pommes hlanclics, and place them on 
the ground by his side. Still this was not enough for 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 189 

him. When it greAV dark he contrived to creep away 
between the legs of the horses and crawl over to the 
Indian camp. Here he fed to his heart's content, 
and was brought back again in the morning, when 
Gingras, the trapper, put him on horseback and car- 
ried him to the fort. He managed to survive the 
effects of his greediness. Though slightly deranged 
when we left this part of the country, he was other- 
wise in tolerable health, and expressed his firm con- 
viction that nothing could ever kill him. 

When the sun was yet an hour high, it was a gay 
scene in the village. The warriors stalked sedately 
among the lodges, or along the margin of the stream, 
or walked out to visit the bands of horses that were 
feeding over the prairie. Half the population deserted 
the close and heated lodges and betook themselves 
to the water; and here you might see boys and girls, 
and young squaws, splashing, swimming, and diving, 
beneath the afternoon sun, with merry screams and 
laughter. But when the sun was resting above the 
broken peaks, and the purple mountains threw their 
shadows for miles over the prairie ; when our old tree 
basked peacefully in the horizontal rays, and the 
swelling plains and scattered groves were softened 
into a tranquil beauty, — then the scene around our 
tent was worthy of a Salvator. Savage figures, with 
quivers at their backs, and guns, lances, or toma- 
hawks in their hands, sat on horseback, motionless 
as statues, their arms crossed on their breasts and 
their eyes fixed in a steady unwavering gaze upon 



190 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

US. Others stood erect, wrapped from head to foot 
in their long white robes of buffalo-hide. Others 
sat together on the grass, holding their shaggy horses 
by a rope, with their dark busts exposed to view as 
they suffered their robes to fall from their shoulders. 
Others again stood carelessly among the throng, with 
nothing to conceal the matchless symmetry of their 
forms. There was one in particular, a ferocious 
fellow, named The Mad Wolf, who, with the bow in 
his hand and the quiver at his back, might have 
seemed, but for his face, the Pythian Apollo himself. 
Such a figure rose before the imagination of West, 
when, on first seeing the Belvedere in the Vatican, he 
exclaimed, " By God, a Mohawk ! " 

When the prairie grew dark, the horses were driven 
in and secured near the camp, and the crowd began to 
melt away. Fires gleamed around, duskily revealing 
the rough trappers and the graceful Indians. One 
of the families near us was always gathered about a 
bright fire that lighted up the interior of their lodge. 
Withered, witch-like hags flitted around the blaze; 
and here for hour after hour sat a circle of children 
and young girls, laughing and talking, their round 
merry faces glowing in the ruddy light. We could 
hear the monotonous notes of the drum from the 
Indian camp, with the chant of the war-song, dead- 
ened in the distance, and the long chorus of quaver- 
ing yells, where the war-dance was going on in the 
largest lodge. For several nights, too, we heard 
wild and mournful cries, rising and dying away like 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 191 

the melancholy voice of a wolf. They came from the 
sisters and female relatives of Mahto-Tatonka, who 
were gashing their limbs with knives, and bewailing 
the death of Henry Chatillon's squaw. The hour 
would grow late before all went to rest in our camp. 
Then, while the embers of the fires glowed dimly, the 
men lay stretched in their blankets on the ground, 
and nothing could be heard but the restless motions 
of the crowded horses. 

I recall these scenes with a mixed feeling of 
pleasure and pain. At this time, I was so reduced 
by illness that I could seldom walk without reeling 
like a drunken man, and when I rose from my seat 
upon the ground, the landscape suddenly grew dim 
before my eyes, the trees and lodges seemed to sway 
to and fro, and the prairie to rise and fall like the 
swells of the ocean. Such a state of things is not 
enviable anywhere. In a country where a man's life 
may at any moment depend on the strength of his 
arm, or it may be on the activity of his legs, it is 
more particularly inconvenient. Nor is sleeping on 
damp ground, with an occasional drenching from a 
shower, ver}^ beneficial in such cases. I sometimes 
suffered the extremity of exhaustion, and was in a 
tolerably fair way of atoning for my love of the 
prairie by resting there forever. 

I tried repose and a very sparing diet. For a long 
time, with exemplary patience, I lounged about the 
camp, or at the utmost staggered over to the Indian 
village, and walked faint and dizzy among the lodges. 



192 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

It would not do; and I bethought me of starvation. 
During five days I sustained life on one small biscuit 
a day. At the end of that time I was weaker than 
before, but the disorder seemed shaken in its strong- 
hold, and very gradually I began to resume a less 
rigid diet. 

I used to lie languid and dreamy before our tent, 
musing on the past and the future, and when most 
overcome with lassitude, m}^ eyes turned always 
towards the distant Black Hills. There is a spirit of 
energy in mountains, and they impart it to all who 
approach them. At that time I did not know how 
many dark superstitions and gloomy legends are asso- 
ciated with the Black Hills in the minds of the 
Indians, but I felt an eager desire to penetrate their 
hidden recesses, and explore the chasms and preci- 
pices, black torrents and silent forests, that I fancied 
were concealed there. 



CHAPTER XII. 

ILL-LUCK. 

A Canadian came from Fort Laramie, and brought 
a curious piece of intelligence. A trapper, fresh 
from the mountains, had become enamoured of a 
Missouri damsel belonging to a family who with 
other emigrants had been for some days encamped in 
the neighborhood of the fort. If bravery be the most 
potent charm to win the favor of the fair, then no 
wooer could be more irresistible than a Rocky Moun- 
tain trapper. In the present instance, the suit was 
not urged in vain. The lovers concerted a scheme, 
which they proceeded to carr}- into effect with all 
possible despatch. The emigrant party left the fort, 
and on the next night but one encamped as usual, 
and placed a guard. A little after midnight, the 
enamoured trapper drew near, mounted on a strong 
horse, and leading another by the bridle. Fastening 
both animals to a tree, he stealthily moved towards 
the wagons, as if he were approaching a band of 
buffalo. Eluding the vigilance of the guard, who 
were probably half asleep, he met his mistress by 
appointment at the outskirts of the camp, mounted 
her on his spare horse, and made off with her through 

the darkness. The sequel of the adventure did not 

13 



194 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

reach our ears, and we never learned how the impru- 
dent fair one liked an Indian locige for a dwelling, 
and a reckless trapper for a bridegroom. 

At length The Whirlwind and his warriors deter- 
mined to move. They had resolved after all their 
preparations not to go to the rendezvous at La Bontd's 
camp, but to pass through the Black Hills and spend 
a few weeks in hunting the buffalo on the other side, 
until they had killed enough to furnish them with a 
stock of provisions and with hides to make their 
lodges for the next season. This done, they were to 
send out a small independent war-party against the 
enemy. Their final determination placed us in some 
embarrassment. Should we go to La Bont^'s camp, 
it was not impossible that the other villages would 
prove as vacillating as The Whirlwind's, and that no 
assembly whatever would take place. Our old com- 
panion Reynal had conceived a liking for us, or 
rather for our biscuit and coffee, and for the occa- 
sional small presents which we made him. He was 
very anxious that Ave should go with the village 
which he himself intended to follow. He was cer- 
tain that no Indians would meet at the rendezvous, 
and said, moreover, that it would be easy to convey 
our cart and baggage through the Black Hills. He 
knew, however, nothing of the matter. Neither he 
nor any white man with us had ever seen the diffi- 
cult and obscure defiles through which the Indians 
intended to make their way. I passed them after- 
wards, and had much ado to force my distressed 



ILL-LUCK. 195 

horse along the narrow ravines, and through chasms 
where daylight could scarcely penetrate. Our cart 
might as easily have been driven over the summit of 
Pike's Peak. But of this we were ignorant; and in 
view of the difficulties and uncertainties of an attempt 
to visit the rendezvous, we recalled the old proverb, 
about "A bird in the hand," and decided to follow 
the village. 

Both camps, the Indians' and our own, broke up 
on the morning of the first of July. I was so weak 
that the aid of a spoonful of whiskey, swallowed at 
short intervals, alone enabled me to sit my horse 
through the short journey of that day. For half a 
mile before us and half a mile behind, the prairie was 
covered far and wide with the moving throng of 
savages. The barren, broken plain stretched away to 
the right and left, and far in front rose the precipi- 
tous ridge of the Black Hills. We pushed forward 
to the head of the scattered column, passing burdened 
traineaux, heavily laden pack-horses, gaunt old women 
on foot, gay young squaws on horseback, restless 
children running among the crowd, old men striding 
along in their white buffalo-robes, and groups of 
young warriors mounted on their best horses. Henry 
Chatillon, looking backward over the distant prairie, 
exclaimed suddenly that a horseman was approach- 
ing, and in truth we could just discern a small black 
speck slowly moving over the face of a distant swell, 
like a fly creeping on a wall. It rapidly grew larger 
as it approached. 



196 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"White man, I b'lieve," said Henry; "look how 
he ride. Indian never ride that way. Yes; he got 
rifle on the saddle before him." 

The horseman disappeared in a hollow of the 
prairie, but we soon saw him again, and as he came 
riding at a gallop towards us through the crowd of 
Indians, his long hair streaming in the wind behind 
him, we recognized the ruddy face and old buckskin 
frock of Gingras the trapper. He w^as just arrived 
from Fort Laramie, and said he had a message for us. 
A trader named Bisonette, one of Henry's friends, 
had lately come from the settlements, and intended 
to go with a party of men to La Bont^'s camp, where, 
as Gingras assured us, ten or twelve villages of 
Indians would certainly assemble. Bisonette desired 
that we would cross over and meet him there, and 
promised that his men should protect our horses and 
baggage while we went among the Indians. Shaw 
and I stopped our horses, held a council, and in an 
evil hour resolved to go. 

For the rest of that day our course and that of the 
Indians was the same. In less than an hour we came 
to where the high barren prairie terminated, sinking 
down abruptly in steep descent ; and standing on the 
verge, we saw below us a great meadow. Laramie 
Creek bounded it on the left, sweeping along in the 
shadow of the heights, and passing with its shallow 
and rapid current just beneath us. We sat on horse- 
back, waiting and looking on, Avhile the whole savage 
array went pouring by, hurrying down the declivity 



ILL-LUCIC 197 

and spreading over the meadow below. In a few 
moments the plain was swarming with the moving 
multitude, some just visible, like specks in the dis- 
tance, others still hastening by and fording the stream 
in bustle and confusion. On the edge of the heights 
sat a group of the elder warriors, gravely smoking 
and looking with unmoved faces on the wild and 
striking spectacle. 

Up went the lodges in a circle on the margin of 
the stream. For the sake of quiet we pitched our 
tent among some trees half a mile distant. In the 
afternoon we were in the village. The day was a 
glorious one, and the whole camp seemed lively and 
animated in sympathy. Groups of children and 
young girls were laughing gayly outside the lodges. 
The shields, the lances, and the bows were removed 
from the tall tripods on which they usually hung, 
before the dwellings of their owners. The warriors 
were mounting their horses, and one by one riding 
away over the prairie towards the neighboring hills. 

Shaw and I sat on the grass near the lodge of 
Reynal. An old woman, with true Indian hospitality, 
brought a bowl of boiled venison and placed it before 
us. We amused ourselves with watching a few 
young squaws who were plapng together and chas- 
ing each other in and out of one of the lodges. Sud- 
denly the wild yell of the war-whoop came pealing 
from the hills. A crowd of horsemen appeared, 
rushing down their sides, and riding at full speed 
towards the village, each warrior's long hair flying 



198 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

behind him in the wind like a ship's streamer. As 
they approached, the confused throng assumed a 
regular order, and entering two by two, they circled 
round the area at full gallop, each warrior singing 
his war-song as he rode. Some of their dresses were 
superb. They wore crests of feathers, and close 
tunics of antelope skins, fringed with the scalp -locks 
of their enemies ; many of their shields, too, fluttered 
with the war-eagle's feathers. All had bows and 
arrows at their backs ; some carried long lances, and 
a few were armed with guns. The White Shield, 
their partisan, rode in gorgeous attire at their head, 
mounted on a black-and-white horse. Mahto-Tatonka 
and his brothers took no part in this parade, for they 
were in mourning for their sister, and were all sitting 
in their lodges, their bodies bedaubed from head to 
foot with white clay, and a lock of hair cut from the 
forehead of each. 

The warriors rode three times round the village; 
and as each noted champion passed, the old women 
would scream out his name, to honor his bravery, 
and excite the emulation of the younger warriors. 
Little urchins, not two years old, followed the war- 
like pageant with glittering eyes, and gazed with 
eager admiration at the heroes of their tribe. 

The procession rode out of the village as it had 
entered it, and in half an hour all the warriors had 
returned again, dropping quietly in, singly or in 
parties of two or three. 

The parade over, we were entertained with an 



ILL-LUCK. 199 

episode of Indian domestic life. A vicious-looking 
squaw, beside herself with rage, was berating her 
spouse, who, with a look of total unconcern, sat 
cross-legged in the middle of his lodge, smoking his 
pipe in silence. At length, maddened by his cool- 
ness, she made a rush at the lodge, seized the poles 
which supported it, and tugged at them, one after 
the other, till she brought down the whole structure, 
poles, hides, and all, clattering on his head, burying 
him in the wreck of his habitation. He pushed aside 
the hides with his hand, and presently his head 
emerged, like a turtle's from its shell. Still he sat 
smoking sedately as before, a wicked glitter in his 
eyes alone betraying the pent-up storm within. The 
squaw, scolding all the while, proceeded to saddle 
her horse, bestride him, and canter out of the camp, 
intending, as it seemed, to return to her father's 
lodge, wherever that might be. The warrior, who 
had not deigned even to look at her, now coolly arose, 
disengaged himself from the ruins, tied a cord of hair 
by way of bridle round the jaw of his buffalo-horse, 
broke a stout cudgel, about four feet long, from 
the butt-end of a lodge-pole, mounted, and galloped 
majestically over the prairie to discipline his offending 
helpmeet. 

As the sun rose next morningf we looked across the 
meadow, and could see the lodges levelled and the 
Indians gathering together in preparation to leave 
the camp. Their course lay to the westward. We 
turned towards the north with our three men, the four 



200 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

trappers following us, with tlie Indian family of 
Morin. We travelled until night, and encamped 
among some trees by the side of a little brook, where 
during the whole of the next day we lay waiting for 
Bisonette; but no Bisonette appeared. Here two of 
our trapper friends left us, and set out for the Rocky 
Mountains. On the second morning, despairing of 
Bisonette 's arrival, we resumed our journey, travers- 
ing a forlorn and dreary monotony of sun-scorched 
plains, where no living thing appeared save here and 
there an antelope flying before us like the wind. 
When noon came we saw an unwonted and welcome 
sight; a fine growth of trees, marking the course of 
a little stream called Horseshoe Creek. They stood 
wide asunder, spreading a thick canopy of leaves 
above a surface of rich, tall grass. The stream ran 
swiftly, as clear as crystal, through the bosom of the 
wood, sparkling over its bed of white sand, and 
darkening again as it entered a deep cavern of 
foliage. I was thoroughly exhausted, and flung my- 
self on the ground, scarcely able to move. 

In the morning, as glorious a sun rose upon us as 
ever animated that wilderness. We advanced, and 
soon were surrounded by tall bare hills, overspread 
from top to bottom with prickly-pears and other 
cacti, that seemed like clinging reptiles. A plain, 
flat and hard, with scarcely the vestige of grass, lay 
before us, and a line of tall misshapen trees bounded 
the onward view. There was no sight or sound of 
man or beast, or any living thing, although behind 



ILL-LUCK. 201 

those trees was the long-looked-for place of rendez- 
vous, where we hoped to have found the Indians con- 
gregated by thousands. We looked and listened 
anxiously. We pushed forward with our best speed, 
and forced our horses through the trees. There 
were copses of some extent beyond, with a scanty 
stream creeping among them; and as we pressed 
through the yielding branches, deer sprang up to the 
right and left. At length we caught a glimpse of 
the prairie beyond, emerged upon it, and saw, not a 
plain covered with encampments and swarming with 
life, but a vast unbroken desert stretching away 
before us league upon league, without bush or tree, 
or anything that had life. We drew rein and gave 
to the winds our sentiments concerning the whole 
aboriginal race of America. Our journey was worse 
than vain. For myself, I was vexed beyond measure ; 
as I well knew that a slight aggravation of my dis- 
order would render this false step irrevocable, and 
make it impossible to accomplish effectually the 
object which had led me an arduous journey of 
between three and four thousand miles. 

And where were the Indians? They were mus- 
tered in great numbers at a spot about twenty miles 
distant, where at that very moment they were dan- 
cing their war dances. The scarcity of buffalo in the 
vicinity of La Bontd's camp, which would render 
their supply of j)rovisions scanty and precarious, had 
probably prevented them from assembling there ; but 
of all this we knew nothing until some weeks after. 



202 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Sliaw lashed his horse and galloped forward. I, 
though much more vexed than he, was not strong 
enough to adopt this convenient vent to my feelings ; 
so I followed at a quiet pace. We rode up to a 
solitary old tree, which seemed the only place fit for 
encampment. Half its branches were dead, and the 
rest were so scantily furnished with leaves that they 
cast but a meagre and wretched shade. We threw 
down our saddles in the strip of shadow cast by the 
old twisted trunk, and sat down upon them. In 
silent indignation we remained smoking for an hour 
or more, shifting our saddles with the shifting 
shadow, for the sun was intolerably hot. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HUNTING INDIANS. 

At last we had reached La Bontd's camp, towards 
which our eyes had turned so long. Of all weary 
hours, those that passed between noon and sunset of 
that day may bear away the palm of exquisite dis- 
comfort. I lay under the tree reflecting on what 
course to pursue, watching the shadows which seemed 
never to move, and the sun which seemed fixed in 
the sky, and hoping every moment to see the men and 
horses of Bisonette emerging from the woods. Shaw 
and Henry had ridden out on a scouting expedition, 
and did not return till the sun was setting. There 
was nothing very cheering in their faces or in the 
news they brought. 

"We have been ten miles from here," said Shaw. 
"We climbed the highest butte we could find, and 
could not see a buffalo or an Indian; nothing but 
prairie for twenty miles around us." Henry's horse 
was disabled by clambering up and down the sides of 
ravines, and Shaw's was greatly fatigued. 

After supper that evening, as we sat around the 
fire, I proposed to Shaw to wait one day longer, in 
hopes of Bisonette 's arrival, and if he should not 
come, to send Deslauriers with the cart and baggage 



204 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

back to Fort Laramie, while we ourselves followed 
The Whirlwind's village, and attempted to overtake 
it as it passed the mountains. Shaw, not having the 
same motive for hunting Indians that I had, was 
averse to the plan ; I therefore resolved to go alone. 
This design I adopted very unwillingly, for I knew 
that in the present state of my health the attempt 
would be painful and hazardous. I hoped that 
Bisonette would appear in the course of the follow- 
ing day, and bring us some information by which 
to direct our course, thus enabling me to accomplish 
my purpose by means less objectionable. 

The rifle of Henry Chatillon was necessary for the 
subsistence of the party in my absence; so I called 
Raymond, and ordered him to prepare to set out 
with me. Raymond rolled his eyes vacantly about, 
but at length, having succeeded in grappling with 
the idea, he withdrew to his bed under the cart. He 
was a heavy-moulded fellow, with a broad face, 
expressing impenetrable stupidity and entire self- 
confidence. As for his good qualities, he had a sort 
of stubborn fidelity, an insensibility to danger, and a 
kind of instinct or sagacity, which sometimes led him 
right where better heads than his were at a loss. 
Besides this, he knew very well how to handle a 
rifle and picket a horse. 

Through the following day the sun glared down 
upon us with a pitiless, penetrating heat. The dis- 
tant blue prairie seemed quivering under it. The 
lodge of our Indian associates parched in the burning 



HUNTING INDIANS. 206 

rays, and our rifles, as they leaned against the tree, 
were too hot for the touch. There was a dead silence 
through our camp, broken only by the hum of gnats 
and mosquitoes. The men, resting their foreheads 
on their arms, were sleeping under the cart. The 
Indians kept close within their lodge, except the 
newly-married pair, who were seated together under 
an awning of buffalo-robes, and the old conjurer, 
who, with his hard, emaciated face and gaunt ribs, 
was perched aloft like a turkey-buzzard, among the 
dead branches of an old tree, constantly on the look- 
out for enemies. We dined, and then Shaw saddled 
his horse. 

"I will ride back," said he, "to Horseshoe Creek, 
and see if Bisonette is there." 

"I would go with you," I answered, "but I must 
reserve all the strength I have." 

The afternoon dragged away at last. I occupied 
myself in cleaning my rifle and pistols, and making 
other preparations for the journey. It was late 
before I wrapped myself in my blanket, and lay down 
for the night, with my head on my saddle. Shaw 
had not returned, but this gave us no uneasiness, for 
we supposed that he had fallen in with Bisonette, 
and was spending the night with him. For a day or 
two past I had gained in strength and health, but 
about midnight an attack of pain awoke me, and for 
some hours I could not sleep. The moon was quiv- 
ering on the broad breast of the Platte; nothing 
could be heard except those low inexplicable sounds, 



206 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

like ^vl^spe^i^gs and footsteps, which no one who has 
spent the night alone amid deserts and forests will 
be at a loss to understand. As I was falling asleep, 
a familiar voice, shouting from the distance, awoke 
me again. A rapid step approached the camp, and 
Shaw, on foot, with his gun in his hand, hastily- 
entered. 

" Where 's your horse ? " said I, raising myself on 
my elbow. 

"Lost! " said Shaw. "Where 's Deslauriers ? " 

"There," I replied, pointing to a confused mass of 
blankets and buffalo-robes. 

Shaw touched them with the butt of his gun, and 
up sprang our faithful Canadian. 

"Come, Deslauriers; stir up the fire, and get me 
something to eat." 

" Where 's Bisonette ? " asked I. 

" The Lord knows ; there 's nobody at Horseshoe 
Creek." 

Shaw had gone back to the spot where we had 
encamped two days before, and finding nothing there 
but the ashes of our fires, he had tied his horse to 
the tree while he bathed in the stream. Something 
startled his horse, which broke loose, and for two 
hours Shaw tried in vain to catch him. Sunset 
approached, and it was twelve miles to camp. So 
he abandoned the attempt, and set out on foot to 
join us. The greater part of his perilous and solitary 
walk was in darkness. His moccasons were worn to 
tatters and his feet severely lacerated. He sat down 



HUNTING INDIANS. 207 

to eat, however, the usual equanimity of his temper 
not at all disturbed, by his misfortune, and my last 
recollection before falling asleep was of Shaw, seated 
cross-legged before the fire, smoking his pipe. 

When I awoke again there was a fresh damp smell 
in the air, a gray twilight involved the prairie, and 
above its eastern verge was a streak of cold red sky. 
I called to the men, and in a moment a fire was 
blazing brightly in the dim morning light, and break- 
fast was getting ready. We sat down together on 
the grass, to the last civilized meal which Raymond 
and I were destined to enjoy for some time. 

"Now bring in the horses." 

My little mare Pauline was soon standing by the 
fire. She was a fleet, hardy, and gentle animal, 
christened after Paul Dorion, from whom I had pro- 
cured her in exchange for Pontiac. She did not 
look as if equipped for a morning pleasure-ride. In 
front of the black, high-bowed mountain-saddle were 
fastened holsters, with heavy pistols. A pair of 
saddle-bags, a blanket tightly rolled, a small parcel 
of Indian presents tied up in a buffalo-skin, a leather 
bag of flour, and a smaller one of tea, were all secured 
behind, and a long ti-ail-rope was wound round her 
neck. Raymond had a strong black mule, equipped 
in a similar manner. We crammed our powder-horns 
to the throat, and mounted. 

" I will meet you at Fort Laramie on the first of 
August," said I to Shaw. 

"That is," he replied, "if we don't meet before 



208 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

that. I think I shall follow after you in a day 
or two." 

This in fact he attempted, and would have suc- 
ceeded if he had not encountered obstacles against 
which his resolute spirit was of no avail. Two days 
after I left him he sent Deslauriers to the fort with 
the cart and baggage, and set out for the mountains 
with Henry Chatillon; but a tremendous thunder- 
storm had deluged the prairie, and nearly obliterated 
not only our trail but that of the Indians themselves. 
They encamped at the base of the mountains, at a 
loss in what direction to go. In the morning Shaw 
found himself poisoned by the plant known as 
"poison ivy," in such a manner that it was impossible 
for him to travel. So they turned back reluctantly 
towards Fort Laramie. Shaw lay seriously ill for a 
week, and remained at the fort till I rejoined him 
some time after. 

To return to my own story. Raymond and I shook 
hands with our friends, rode out upon the prairie, 
and, clambering the sandy hollows channelled in the 
sides of the hills, gained the high plains above. If 
a curse had been pronounced upon the land, it could 
not have worn an aspect more forlorn. There were 
abrupt broken hills, deep hollows, and wide plains; 
but all alike glared with an insupportable whiteness 
under the burning sun. The country, as if parched 
by the heat, was cracked into innumerable fissures 
and ravines, tiiat not a little impeded our progress. 
Their steep sides were white and raw, and along the 



HUNTING INDIANS. 209 

bottom we several times discovered the broad tracks 
of the grizzly bear, nowhere more abundant than in 
this region. The ridges of the hills were hard as 
rock, and strewn with pebbles of flint and coarse red 
jasper; looking from them, there was nothing to 
relieve the desert nniformity, save here and there a 
pine-tree clinging at the edge of a ravine, and stretch- 
ing its rough, shaggy arms into the scorching air. 
Its resinous odors recalled the pine-clad mountains of 
New England, and, goaded as I was with a morbid 
thirst, I thought with a longing desire on the crystal 
treasure poured in such wasteful profusion from our 
thousand hills. I heard, in fancy, the plunging and 
gurgling of waters among the shaded rocks, and saw 
them gleaming dark and still far down amid the 
crevices, the cold drops trickling from the long green 
mosses. 

When noon came we found a little stream, with 
a few trees and bushes ; and here we rested for an 
hour. Then we travelled on, guided by the sun, 
until, just before sunset, we reached another stream, 
called Bitter Cotton-wood Creek. A thick growth of 
bushes and old storm-beaten trees grew at intervals 
along its bank. Near the foot of one of the trees we 
flung down our saddles, and hobbling our horses, 
turned them loose to feed. The little stream was 
clear and swift, and ran musically over its white 
sands. Small water-birds were splashing in the 
shallows, and filling the air with cries and flutter- 

ings. The sun was just sinking among gold and 

14 



210 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

crimson clouds behind Mount Laramie. I lay upon 
a log by the margin of the water, and watched the 
restless motions of the little fish in a deep, still nook 
below. Strange to say, I seemed to have gained 
strength since the morning, and almost felt a sense 
of returning health. 

We built our fire. Night came, and the wolves 
began to howl. One deep voice began, answered in 
awful responses from hills, plains, and woods. Such 
sounds do not disturb one's sleep upon the prairie. 
We picketed the mare and the mule, and did not 
awake until daylight. Then we turned them loose, 
still hobbled, to feed for an hour before starting. 
We were getting ready our breakfast when Raymond 
saw an antelope half a mile distant and said he would 
go and shoot it. 

"Your business," said I, "is to look after the 
animals. I am too weak to do much, if anything 
happens to them, and you must keep within sight of 
the camp." 

Raymond promised, and set out with his rifle in 
his hand. The mare and the mule had crossed the 
stream, and were feeding among the long grass on 
the other side, much tormented by the attacks of 
large green-headed flies. As I watched them, I saw 
them go down into a hollow, and as several minutes 
elapsed without their reappearing, I waded through 
the stream to look after them. To my vexation and 
alarm I discovered them at a great distance, galloping 
away at full speed, Pauline in advance, with her 



HUNTING INDIANS. 211 

hobbles broken, and the mule, still fettered, follow- 
ing with awkward leaps. I fired my rifle and shouted 
to recall Rajnnond. In a moment he came running 
through the stream, with a red handkerchief bound 
round his head. I pointed to the fugitives, and 
ordered him to pursue them. Muttering a " Sacr^ " 
between his teeth, he set out at full speed, still 
swinging his rifle in his hand. I walked up to the 
top of a hill, and, looking away over the prairie, 
could distinguish the runaways, still at full gallop. 
Returning to the fire, I sat down at the foot of a 
tree. Wearily and anxiously hour after hour passed 
away. The loose bark dangling from the trunk 
behind me flapped to and fro in the wind, and the 
mosquitoes kept up their drowsy hum; but other 
than this there was no sight nor sound of life through- 
out the burning landscape. The sun rose higher and 
higher, until I knew that it must be noon. It seemed 
scarcely possible that the animals could be recovered. 
If they were not, my situation was one of serious 
difficulty. Shaw, when I left him, had decided to 
move that morning, but whither he had not deter- 
mined. To look for him would be a vain attempt. 
Fort Laramie was forty miles distant, and I could not 
walk a mile without great effort. Not then having 
learned the philosophy of yielding to disproportionate 
obstacles, I resolved, come what would, to continue 
the pursuit of the Indians. Only one plan occurred 
to me; this was, to send Raymond to the fort with 
an order for more horses, while I remained on the 



212 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

spot, awaiting his return, whicli might take place 
within three daj-s. But to remain stationary and 
alone for three clays, in a country full of dangerous 
Indians, was not the most flattering of prospects; 
and, protracted as my Indian hunt must be by such 
delay, it was not easy to foretell its result. Revolv- 
ing these matters, I grew hungry ; and as our stock 
of provisions, except four or five pounds of flour, 
was by this time exhausted, I left the camp to see 
what game I could find. Nothing could be seen 
except four or five large curlews wheeling over my 
head, and now and then alighting upon the prairie. 
I shot two of them, and was about returning, when 
a startling sight caught my eye. A small, dark 
object, like a human head, suddenly appeared, and 
vanished among the thick bushes along the stream 
below. In that country every stranger is a suspected 
enemy ; and I threw forward the muzzle of my rifle. 
In a moment the bushes were violently shaken, two 
heads, but not human heads, protruded, and to my 
great joy I recognized the downcast, disconsolate 
countenance of the black mule and the yellow visage 
of Pauline. Raymond came upon the mule, pale and 
haggard, complaining of a fiery pain in his chest. I 
took charge of the animals while he kneeled down 
by the side of the stream to drink. He had kept the 
runaways in sight as far as the Side Fork of Laramie 
Creek, a distance of more than ten miles ; and here 
with great difficulty he had succeeded in catching 
them. I saw that he was unarmed, and asked him 



HUNTING INDIANS. 213 

what lie had done with his rifle. It had encumbered 
him in his pursuit, and he had dropped it on the 
prairie, thinking that he could find it on his return; 
but in this he had failed. The loss might prove a 
very serious one. I was too much rejoiced, however, 
at the recovery of the animals, and at the fidelity of 
Raymond, wh6 might easily have deserted with them, 
to think much about it; and having made some tea 
for him in a tin vessel which we had brought with 
us, I told him that I would give him two hours for 
resting before we set out again. He had eaten noth- 
ing that day; but having no appetite, he lay down 
immediately to sleep. I picketed the animals among 
the best grass that I could find, and made fires of 
green wood to protect them from the flies ; then sit- 
ting down again by the tree, I watched the slow 
movements of the sun, grudging every moment that 
passed. 

The time I had mentioned expired, and I awoke 
Raymond. We saddled and set out again, but first 
we went in search of the lost rifle, and in the course 
of an hour were fortunate enough to find it. Then 
we turned westward, and moved over the hills and 
hollows at a slow pace towards the Black Hills. The 
heat no longer tormented us, for a cloud was before 
the sun. The air grew fresh and cool, the distant 
mountains frowned more gloomily, there was a low 
muttering of thunder, and dense black masses of 
cloud rose heavily behind the broken peaks. At first 
they were fringed with silver by the afternoon sun; 



214 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

but soon thick blackness overspread the sky, and the 
desert around us was wrapped in gloom. There was 
an awful sublimity in the hoarse murmuring of the 
thunder, and the sombre shadows that involved the 
mountains and the plain. The storm broke with a 
zigzag blinding flash, a terrific crash of thunder, and 
a hurricane that howled over the prairie, dashing 
floods of water against us. Raymond looked about 
him- and cursed the merciless elements. There 
seemed no shelter near, but we discerned at length a 
deep ravine gashed in the level prairie, and saw half- 
way down its side an old pine-tree, whose rough 
horizontal boughs formed a sort of pent-house against 
the tempest. We found a practicable passage, led 
our animals down, and fastened them to large loose 
stones at the bottom ; then climbing up, we drew our 
blankets over our heads, and crouched close beneath 
the old tree. Perhaps I was no competent judge of 
time, but it seemed to me that we were sitting there 
a full hour, while around us poured a deluge of rain, 
through which the rocks on the opposite side of the 
gulf were barely visible. The first burst of the tempest 
soon subsided, but the rain poured in steady torrents. 
At length Raymond grew impatient, and scrambling 
out of the ravine, gained the level prairie above. 

"What does the weather look like?" asked I, 
from my seat under the tree. 

"'It looks bad," he answered: "dark all round;" 
and again he descended and sat down by my side. 
Some ten minutes elapsed. 



HUNTING INDIANS. 215 

"Go up again," said I, "and take another look; " 
and he clambered up the precipice. "Well, how 
is it?" 

"Just the same, only I see one little bright spot 
over the top of the mountain." 

The rain by this time had begun to abate; and 
going down to the bottom of the ravine, we loosened 
the animals, who were standing up to their knees in 
water. Leading them up the rocky throat of the 
ravine, we reached the plain above. All around us 
was obscurity ; but the bright spot above the moun- 
tains grew wider and ruddier, until at length the 
clouds drew apart, and a flood of sunbeams poured 
down, streaming along the precipices, and involving 
them in a thin blue haze, as soft as that which wraps 
the Apennines on an evening in spring. Rapidly the 
clouds were broken and scattered, like routed legions 
of evil spirits. The plain lay basking in sunbeams 
around us; a rainbow arched the desert from north 
to south, and far in front a line of woods seemed 
inviting us to refreshment and repose. When we 
reached them, they were glistening with prismatic 
dewdrops, and enlivened by the songs and flutter- 
ings of birds. Strange winged insects, benumbed by 
the rain, were chnging to the leaves and the bark of 
the trees. 

Raymond kindled a fire with great difficulty. The 
animals turned eagerly to feed on the soft rich grass, 
while I, wrapping myself in my blanket, lay down 
and gazed on the evening landscape. The moun- 



216 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

tains, whose stern features had frowned upon us so 
gloomily, seemed lighted up with a benignant smile, 
and the green waving undulations of the plain were 
gladdened with warm sunshine. "Wet, ill, and 
wearied as I was, my heart grew lighter at the view, 
and I drew from it an augury of good. 

When morning came, Raymond awoke, coughing 
violently, though I had aj)parently received no injury. 
We mounted, crossed the little stream, pushed 
through the trees, and began our journey over the 
plain beyond. And now, as we rode slowly along, 
we looked anxiously on every hand for traces of the 
Indians, not doubting that the village had passed 
somewhere in that vicinity; but the scanty shrivelled 
grass was not more than three or four inches high, 
and the ground was so hard that a host might have 
marched over it and left scarcely a trace of its pas- 
sage. Up hill and down hill, and clambering through 
ravines, we continued our journey. As we were 
passing the foot of a hill, I saw Raymond, who was 
some rods in advance, suddenly jerk the reins of his 
mule, slide from his seat, and run in a crouching 
posture up a hollow ; then in an instant I heard the 
sharp crack of his rifle. A wounded antelope came 
running on three legs over the hill. I lashed Pauline 
and made after him. My fleet little mare soon 
brought me by his side, and, after leaping and bound- 
ing for a few moments in vain, he stood still, as if 
despairing of escape. His glistening eyes turned up 
towards my face with so piteous a look that it was 



HUNTING INDIANS. 217 

with feelings of infinite compunction that I shot him 
through the head with a pistoL Rajanond skinned 
and cut him up, and we hung the fore-quarters to 
our saddles, much rejoiced that our exhausted stock 
of provisions was renewed in such good time. 

Gaining the top of a hill, we could see along the 
cloudy verge of the prairie before us the lines of 
trees and shadowy groves, that marked the course of 
Laramie Creek. Before noon we reached its banks, 
and began anxiously to search them for footprints of 
the Indians. We followed the stream for several 
miles, now on the shore and now wading in the 
water, scrutinizing every sand-bar and every muddy 
bank. So long was the search that we began to fear 
that we had left the trail undiscovered behind us. 
At length I heard Raymond shouting, and saw him 
jump from his mule to examine some object under 
the shelving bank. I rode up to his side. It was 
the impression of an Indian moccason. Encouraged 
by this, we continued our search till at last some 
appearances on a soft surface of earth not far from 
the shore attracted my eye; and going to examine 
them, I found half a dozen tracks, some made by 
men and some by children. Just then Raymond 
observed across the stream the mouth of a brook, 
entering it from the south. He forded the water, 
rode in at the opening, and in a moment I heard him 
shouting again; so I passed over and joined him. 
The brook had a broad sandy bed, along which the 
water trickled in a scanty stream ; and on either bank 



218 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the bushes were so close that the view was completely 
intercepted. I found Raymond stooping over the 
footprints of three or four horses. Proceeding, we 
found those of a man, then those of a child, then 
those of more horses ; till at last the bushes on each 
bank were beaten down and broken, and the sand 
ploughed up with a multitude of footsteps, and scored 
across with the furrows made by the lodge-poles that 
had been dragged through. It was now certain that 
we had found the trail. I pushed through the 
bushes, and at a little distance on the prairie beyond 
found the ashes of a hundred and fifty lodge-fires, 
with bones and pieces of buffalo-robes scattered about, 
and the pickets to which horses had been tied, still 
standing in the ground. Elated by our success, we 
selected a convenient tree, and, turning the animals 
loose, prepared to make a meal from the haunch of 
the antelope. 

Hardship and exposure had thriven with me won- 
derfully. I had gained both health and strength 
since leaving La Bontd's camp. Raymond and I 
dined together, in high spirits; for we rashly pre- 
sumed that having found one end of the trail we 
should have little difficulty in reaching the other. 
But when the animals were led in, we found that our 
ill-luck had not ceased to follow us. As I was sad- 
dling Pauline, I saw that her eye was dull as lead, 
and the hue of her yellow coat visibly darkened. I 
placed my foot in the stirrup to mount, when she 
staggered and fell Hat on her side. Gaining her feet 



HUNTING INDIANS. 219 

with an effort, she stood by the fire with a drooping 
head. Whether she had been bitten by a snake, or 
poisoned by some noxious plant, or attacked by a 
sudden disorder, it was hard to say ; but at all events, 
her sickness was suflicientl}^ ill-timed and unfortu- 
nate. I succeeded in a second attempt to mount her, 
and with a slow pace we moved forward on the trail 
of the Indians. It led us up a hill and over a dreary 
plain; and here, to our great mortification, the 
traces almost disappeared, for the ground was hard 
as adamant ; and if its flinty surface had ever retained 
the dent of a hoof, the marks had been washed away 
by the deluge of yesterday. An Indian village, in 
its disorderly march, is scattered over the prairie 
often to the width of half a mile ; so that its trail is 
nowhere clearly marked, and the task of following it 
is made doubly wearisome and difficult. By good 
fortune, many large ant-hills, a yard or more in 
diameter, were scattered over the plain, and these 
were frequently broken by the footprints of men and 
horses, and marked by traces of the lodge-poles. 
The succulent leaves of the prickly-pear, bruised 
from the same causes, also helped to guide us; so, 
inch by inch, we moved along. Often we lost the 
trail altogether, and then found it again ; but late in 
the afternoon we were totall}' at fault. We stood 
alone, without a clew to guide us. The broken plain 
expanded for league after league around us, and in 
front the long dark ridge of mountains stretched from 
north to south. Mount Laramie, a little on our 



220 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

right, towered high above the rest, and from a dark 
valley just beyond one of its lower declivities, we dis- 
cerned volumes of white smoke rising slowly. 

"I think," said Raymond, "some Indians must be 
there. Perhaps we had better go." But this plan 
was not lightly to be adopted, and we determined 
still to continue our search after the lost trail. Our 
good stars prompted us to this decision, for we after- 
ward had reason to believe, from information given 
us by the Indians, that the smoke was raised as a 
decoy by a Crow war-party. 

Evening was coming on, and there was no wood 
or water nearer than the foot of the mountains. So 
thither we turned, directing our course towards the 
point where Laramie Creek issues upon the prairie. 
When we reached it, the bare tops of the mountains 
were still bright with sunshine. The little river was 
breaking, with an angry current, from its dark prison. 
There was something in the close vicinity of the 
mountains and the loud surging of the rapids, won- 
derfully cheering and exhilarating. There was a 
grass-plot by the river-bank, surrounded by low 
ridges, which would effectually screen us and our fire 
from the sight of wandering Indians. Here, among 
the grass, I observed numerous circles of large stones, 
traces of a Dahcotah winter encampment. We lay 
down, and did not awake till the sun was up. A 
large rock projected from the shore, and behind it 
the deep water was slowly eddying round and round. 
The temptation was irresistible. I threw off my 



HUNTING INDIANS. 221 

clothes, leaped in, suffered myself to be borne once 
round with the current, and then, seizing the strong 
root of a water-plant, drew myself to the shore. The 
effect was so refreshing that I mistook it for return- 
ing health. But scarcely were we mounted and on 
our way, before the momentary glow passed. Again 
I hung as usual in my seat, scarcely able to hold 
myself erect. 

"Look yonder," said Raymond; "you see that big 
hollow there ; the Indians must have gone that way, 
if they went anywhere about here." 

We reached the gap, which was like a deep notch 
cut into the mountain-ridge, and here we soon found 
an ant-hill furrowed with the mark of a lodge-pole. 
This was quite enough; there could be no doubt 
now. As we rode on, the opening growing narrower, 
the Indians had been compelled to march in closer 
order, and the traces became numerous and distinct. 
The gap terminated in a rocky gateway, leading into 
a rough and steep defile, between two precipitous 
mountains. Here grass and weeds were bruised to 
fragments by the throng that had passed through. 
We moved slowly over the rocks, up the passage; 
and in this toilsome manner advanced for an hour or 
two, bare precipices, hundreds of feet high, shooting 
up on either hand. Raymond, with his hardy mule, 
was a few rods before me, when we came to the foot 
of an ascent steeper than the rest, and which I trusted 
might prove the highest point of the defile. Pauline 
strained upward for a few yards, moaning and stum- 



222 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

bliiig, and tlien came to a dead stop, unable to pro- 
ceed further. I dismounted, and attempted to lead 
her; but my own exhausted strength soon gave out; 
so I loosened the trail -rope from her neck, and tying 
it round my arm, crawled up on my hands and knees. 
I gained the top, totally spent, the sweat-drops trick- 
ling from my forehead. Pauline stood like a statue 
by my side, her shadow falling upon the scorching 
rock; and in this shade, for there was no other, I lay 
for some time, scarcely able to move a limb. All 
around, the black crags, sharp as needles at the top, 
stood baking in the sun, without tree or bush or 
blade of grass to cover their nakedness. The whole 
scene seemed parched with a pitiless, insufferable 
heat. 

After a while I could mount again, and we moved 
on, descending the defile on its western side. There 
was something ridiculous in the situation. Man and 
horse were helpless alike. Pauline and I could neither 
fight nor run. 

Raymond's saddle-girth slipped; and while I pro- 
ceeded he stopped to repair the mischief. I came to 
the top of a little declivity, where a welcome sight 
greeted my eye ; a nook of fresh green grass nestled 
among the cliffs, sunny clumps of bushes on one 
side, and shaggy old pine-trees leaning from the 
rocks on the other. A shrill, familiar voice saluted 
me, and recalled me to days of boyhood ; that of the 
insect called the "locust" by New England school- 
boys, which was clinging among the heated boughs 



HUNTING INDIANS. 223 

of the old pine-trees. Then, too, as I passed the 
bushes, the low sound of falling water reached my 
ear. Pauline turned of her own accord, and pushing 
through the boughs, we found a black rock, over- 
arched by the cool green canopy. An icy stream 
was pouring from its side into a wide basin of white 
sand, whence it had no visible outlet, but filtered 
through into the soil below. While I filled a tin 
cup at the spring, Pauline was eagerly plunging her 
head deep in the pool. Other visitors had been 
there before us. All around in the soft soil were 
the footprints of elk, deer, and the Rocky-Moun- 
tain sheep; and the grizzly bear too had left the 
recent prints of his broad foot, with its frightful 
array of claws. Among these mountains was his 
home. 

Soon after leaving the spring we found a little 
grassy plain, encircled by the mountains, and marked, 
to our great joy, with all the traces of an Indian 
camp. Raymond's practised eye detected certain 
signs, by which he recognized the spot where Reynal's 
lodge had been pitched and his horses picketed. I 
approached, and stood looking at the place. Reynal 
and I had, I believe, hardly a feeling in common, and 
it perplexed me a good deal to understand why I 
should look with so much interest on the ashes of his 
fire, when between him and me there was no other 
bond of sympathy than the slender and precarious 
one of a kindred race. 

In half an hour from this we were free of the 



224 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

mountains. There was a plain before us, totally 
barren and thickly peopled in many parts with prairie- 
dogs, who sat at the mouths of their burrows, and 
yelped at us as we passed. The plain, as we thought, 
was about six miles wide ; but it cost us two hours 
to cross it. Then another mountain-range rose before 
us. From the dense bushes that clothed the steeps 
for a thousand feet shot up black crags, all leaning 
one way, and shattered by storms and thunder into 
grim and threatening shapes. As we entered a nar- 
row passage on the trail of the Indians, they impended 
frightfully above our heads. 

Our course was through thick woods, in the shade 
and sunlight of overhanging boughs. As we wound 
from side to side of the passage, to avoid its obstruc- 
tions, we could see at intervals, through the foliage, 
the awful forms of the gigantic cliffs, that seemed to 
hem us in on the right and on the left, before and 
behind. 

In an open space, fenced in by high rocks, stood 
two Indian forts, of a square form, rudely built of 
sticks and logs. They were somewhat ruinous, hav- 
ing probably been constructed the year before. Each 
might have contained about twenty men. Perhaps 
in this gloomy spot some party had been beset by 
enemies, and those scowling rocks and blasted trees 
might not long since have looked down on a conflict, 
unchronicled and unknown. Yet if any traces of 
bloodshed remained they were hidden by the bushes 
and tall rank weeds. 



HUNTING INDIANS. 225 

Gradually the mountains drew apart, and the pas- 
sage expanded into a plain, where again we found 
traces of an Indian encampment. There were trees 
and bushes just before us, and we stopped here for 
an hour's rest and refreshment. When we had 
finished our meal, Raymond struck fire, and, lighting 
his pipe, sat down at the foot of a tree to smoke. 
For some time I observed him puffing away with a 
face of unusual solemnity. Then slowly taking the 
pipe from his lips, he looked up and remarked that 
we had better not go any farther. 

"Why not?" asked I. 

He said that the country was become very danger- 
ous, that we were entering the range of the Snakes, 
Arapahoes, and Gros-Ventre Blackfeet, and that if 
any of their wandering parties should meet us, it 
would cost us our lives; but he added with blunt 
fidelity that he would go anywhere I wished. I told 
him to bring up the animals, and mounting them we 
proceeded again. I confess that, as we moved for- 
ward, the prospect seemed but a doubtful one. I 
would have given the world for my ordinary elasticity 
of body and mind, and for a horse of such strength 
and spirit as the journey required. 

Closer and closer the rocks gathered round us, 

growing taller and steeper, and pressing more and 

more upon our path. We entered at length a defile 

which, in its way, I never have seen rivalled. The 

mountain was cracked from top to bottom, and we 

were creeping along the bottom of the fissure, in 

15 



226 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

dampness and gloom, with the clink of hoofs on the 
loose shingly rocks, and the hoarse murmuring of a 
petulant brook which kept us company. Sometimes 
the water, foaming among the stones, overspread the 
whole narrow passage; sometimes, withdrawing to 
one side, it gave us room to pass dry-shod. Looking 
up, we could see a narrow ribbon of bright blue sky 
between the dark edges of the opposing cliffs. This 
did not last long. The passage soon widened, and 
sunbeams found their way down, flashing upon the 
black waters. The defile would spread to many rods 
in width ; bushes, trees, and flowers would spring by 
the side of the brook; the cliffs would be feathered 
with shrubbery, that clung in eveiy crevice, and 
fringed with trees, that grew along their sunny edges. 
Then we would be moving again in darkness. The 
passage seemed about four miles long, and before we 
reached the end of it, the unshod hoofs of our animals 
were broken, and their legs cut by the sharp stones. 
Issuing from the mountain we found another plain. 
All around it stood a circle of precipices, that 
seemed the impersonation of Silence and Solitude. 
Here again the Indians had encamped, as well they 
might, after passing with their women, children, 
and horses, through the gulf behind us. In one 
day we had made a journey which it had cost them 
three to accomplish. 

The only outlet to this amphitheatre lay over a 
hill some two hundred feet high, up which we moved 
with difficulty. Looking from the top, we saw that 



HUNTING INDIANS. 227 

at last we were free of the mountains. The prairie 
spread before us, but so wikl and broken that the 
view was everywhere obstructed. Far on our left 
one tall hill swelled up against the sky, on the 
smooth, pale -green surface of which four slowly mov- 
ing black specks were discernible. They were evi- 
dently buffalo, and we hailed the sight as a good 
augury ; for where the buffalo were, there the Indians 
would probably be found. We hoped on that very 
night to reach the village. We were anxious to do 
so for a double reason, wishing to bring our journey 
to an end, and knowing moreover that though to 
enter the village in broad daylight would be perfectly 
safe, yet to encamp in its vicinity would be danger- 
ous. But as we rode on, the sun was sinking, and 
soon was within half an hour of the horizon. We 
ascended a hill, and looked about us for a spot for 
our encampment. The prairie was like a turbulent 
ocean, suddenly congealed when its waves were at 
the highest, and it lay half in light and half in 
shadow, as the rich sunshine, yellow as gold, was 
pouring over it. The rough bushes of the wild sage 
were growing everywhere, its dull pale-green over- 
spreading hill and hollow. Yet a little way before 
us, a bright verdant line of grass was winding along 
the plain, and here and there throughout its course 
glistened pools of water. We went down to it, 
kindled a fu-e, and turned our horses loose to feed. 
It was a little trickling brook, that for some yards 
on either side turned the barren prairie into fertility, 



228 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and here and there it spread into deep pools, where 
the beavers had dammed it up. 

We placed our last remaining piece of antelope 
before a scanty fire, mournfully reflecting on our 
exhausted stock of provisions. Just then a large 
gray hare, peculiar to these prairies, came jumping 
along, and seated himself within fifty yards to look 
at us. I thoughtlessly raised my rifle to shoot him, 
but Raymond called out to me not to fire for fear the 
report should reach the ears of the Indians. That 
night for the first time we considered that the danger 
to which we were exposed was of a somewhat serious 
character; and to those who are unacquainted with 
Indians, it may seem strange that our chief appre- 
hensions arose from the supposed proximity of the 
people whom we intended to visit. Had any strag- 
gling party of these faithful friends caught sight of 
us from the hill-top, they would probably have 
returned in the night to plunder us of our horses, 
and perhaps of our scalps. But the prairie is un- 
favorable to nervousness ; and I presume that neither 
Raymond nor I thought twice of the matter that 
evening. 

For eight hours pillowed on our saddles, we lay 
insensible as logs. Pauline's yellow head was stretched 
over me when I awoke. I rose and examined her. 
Her feet were bruised and swollen by the accidents 
of yesterday, but her eye was brighter, her motions 
livelier, and her mysterious malady had visibly 
abated. We moved on, hoping within an hour to 



HUNTING INDIANS. 229 

come in sight of the Indian viUage ; but again disap- 
pointment awaited us. The trail disappeared upon 
a hard and stony plain. Raymond and I rode from 
side to side, scrutinizing every yard of ground, until 
at length I found traces of the lodge-poles, by the 
side of a ridge of rocks. We began again to follow 
them. 

"What is that black spot out there on the 
prairie?" 

"It looks like a dead buffalo," answered Ray- 
mond. 

We rode to it, and found it to be the huge carcass 
of a bull killed by the hunters as they had passed. 
Tangled hair and scraps of hide were scattered on 
all sides, for the wolves had made merry over it, and 
hollowed out the entire carcass. It was covered with 
myriads of large black crickets, and from its appear- 
ance must have lain there four or five days. The 
sight was a disheartening one, and I observed to Ray- 
mond that the Indians might still be fifty or sixty miles 
off. But he shook his head, and replied that they 
dared not go so far for fear of their enemies, the 
Snakes. 

Soon after this we lost the trail again, and ascended 
a neighboring ridge, totally at a loss. Before us lay 
a plain perfectly flat, spreading on the right and left, 
without apparent limit, and bounded in front by a 
long broken line of hills, ten or twelve miles distant. 
All was open and exposed to view, yet not a buffalo 
nor an Indian was visible. 



230 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"Do you see that?" said Raymond: "now we had 
better turn round." 

But as Raymond's bourgeois thought otherwise, we 
descended the hill and began to cross the plain. We 
had come so far that neither Pauline's limbs nor my 
own could carry me back to Fort Laramie. I con- 
sidered that the lines of expediency and inclination 
tallied exactly, and that the most prudent course was 
to keep forward. The ground immediately around 
us was thickly strewn with the skulls and bones of 
buffalo, for here a year or two before the Indians had 
made a "surround; " yet no living game was in sight. 
At length an antelope sprang up and gazed at us. 
We fired together, and both missed, although the 
animal stood, a fair mark, within eighty yards. This 
ill-success might perhaps be charged to our own 
eagerness, for by this time we had no provisions left 
except a little flour. We could see several pools of 
water, glistening in the distance. As we approached, 
wolves and antelopes bounded away through the tall 
grass around them, and flocks of large white plover 
flew screaming over their surface. Having failed of 
the antelope, Raymond tried his hand at the birds, 
with the same ill-success. The water also disap- 
pointed us. Its margin was so mired by the crowd 
of buffalo that our timorous animals were afraid to 
approach. So we turned away and moved towards 
the hills. The rank grass, where it was not 
trampled down by the buffalo, fairly swept our 
horses' necks. 



HUNTING INDIANS. 231 

Again we foiiud tlie same execrable barren prairie 
offering no clew by which, to guide our way. As we 
drew near the hills, an opening appeared, through 
which the Indians must have gone if they had passed 
that way at all. Slowly we began to ascend it. I 
felt the most dreary forebodings of ill-success, when 
on looking round I could discover neither dent of 
hoof, nor footprint, nor trace of lodge-pole, though 
the passage was encumbered by the skulls of buffalo. 
We heard thunder muttering; another storm was 
coming on. 

As we gained the top of the gap, the prospect 
beyond began to disclose itself. First, we saw a 
long dark line of ragged clouds upon the horizon, 
while above them rose the peaks of the Medicine Bow 
range, the vanguard of the Rocky Mountains; then 
little by little the plain came into view, a vast green 
uniformity, forlorn and tenantless, though Laramie 
Creek glistened in a waving line over its surface, 
without a bush or a tree upon its banks. As yet, 
the round projecting shoulder of a hill intercepted a 
part of the view. I rode in advance, when suddenly 
I could distinguish a few dark spots on the prairie, 
along the bank of the stream. 

"Buffalo!" said I. 

" Horses, by God ! " exclaimed Raymond, lashing 
his mule forward as he spoke. More and more of 
the plain disclosed itself, and more and more horses 
appeared, scattered along the river-bank, or feeding 
in bands over the prairie. Then, standing in a circle 



232 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

by the stream, swarming with their savage inhab- 
itants, we saw, a mile or more oil", the tall lodges of 
the Ogillallah. Never did the heart of wanderer 
more gladden at the sight of home than did mine at 
the sight of that Indian camp. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 

This is hardly the place for portraying the mental 
features of the Indians. The same picture, slightly 
changed in shade and coloring, would serve with 
very few exceptions for all the tribes north of the 
Mexican territories. But with this similarity in their 
modes of thought, the tribes of the lake and ocean 
shores, of the forests and of the plains, differ greatly 
in their manner of life. Having been domesticated 
for several weeks among one of the wildest of the 
hordes that roam over the remote prairies, I had 
unusual opportunities of observing them, and flatter 
myself that a sketch of the scenes that passed daily 
before my eyes may not be devoid of interest. They 
were thorough savages. Neither their manners nor 
their ideas were in the slightest degree modified by 
contact with civilization. They knew nothing of the 
power and real character of the white men, and their 
children would scream in terror when they saw me. 
Their religion, superstitions, and prejudices were the 
same handed down to them from immemorial time. 
They fought with the weapons that their fathers 
fought with, and wore the same garments of skins. 



234 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

They were living representatives of the "stone 
age;" for though their lances and arrows were 
tipped with iron procured from the traders, they 
still used the rude stone mallet of the primeval 
world. 

Great changes are at hand in that region. With 
the stream of emigration to Oregon and California, 
the buffalo mil dwindle away, and the large wander- 
ing communities who depend on them for support 
must be broken and scattered. The Indians will 
soon be abased by whiskey and overawed by military 
posts; so that within a few years the traveller may 
pass in tolerable security through their country. 
Its danger and its charm will have disappeared 
together. 

As soon as Raymond and I discovered the village 
from the gap in the hills, we were seen in our turn; 
keen eyes were constantly on the watch. As we 
rode down upon the plain, the side of the village 
nearest us was darkened with a crowd of naked 
figures. Several men came forward to meet us. I 
could distinguish among them the green blanket of 
the Frenchman Reynal. When we came up the cere- 
mony of shaking hands had to be gone through in 
due form, and then all were eager to know what had 
become of the rest of ni}^ party. I satisfied them on 
this point, and we all moved together towards the 
village. 

"You 've missed it," said Reynal; "if you 'd been 
here day before yesterday, you 'd have found the 



THE OGILLALLAII VILLAGE. 235 

whole prairie over yonder black with buffalo as far as 
you could see. There were no cows, though; noth- 
ing but bulls. We made a ' surround ' every day till 
yesterday. See the village there; don't that look 
like good living?" 

In fact, I could see, even at that distance, long 
cords stretched from lodge to lodge, over which the 
meat, cut by the squaws into thin sheets, was hang- 
ing to dry in the sun. I noticed too that the village 
was somewhat smaller than when I had last seen it, 
and I asked Reynal the cause. He said that old Le 
Borgne had felt too weak to pass over the mountains, 
and so had remained behind with all his relations, 
including Mahto-Tatonka and his brothers. The 
Whirlwind too had been unwilling to come so far, 
because, as Reynal said, he was afraid. Only half a 
dozen lodges had adhered to him, the main body of 
the village setting their chief's authority at naught, 
and taking the course most agreeable to their 
inclinations. 

"What chiefs are there in the village now?" 
asked I. 

"Well," said Reynal, "there's old Red-Water, 
and the Eagle-Feather, and the Big Crow, and 
the Mad Wolf, and the Panther, and the White 
Shield, and — what's his name? — the half-breed 
Shienne." 

By this time we were close to the village, and I 
observed that while the greater part of the lodges 
were Yevy large and neat in their appearance, there 



236 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

was at one side a cluster of squalid, miserable huts. 
I looked towards them, and made some remark about 
their wretched appearance. But I was touching upon 
delicate ground. 

"My squaw's relations live in those lodges," said 
Reynal, very warmly; "and there is n't a better set 
in the whole village." 

" Are there any chiefs among them ? " 

"Chiefs?" said Reynal; "yes, plenty I" 

" What are their names ? " 

" Their names ? Why, there 's the Arrow-Head. 
If he is n't a chief, he ought to be one. And there 's 
the Hail-Storm. He 's nothing but a boy, to be sure; 
but he 's bound to be a chief one of these days." 

Just then we passed between two of the lodges, 
and entered the great area of the village. Superb, 
naked figures stood silently gazing on us. 

"Where's the Bad Wound's lodge?" said I to 
Reynal. 

" There, you 've missed it again ! The Bad Wound 
is away with the Whirlwind. If you could have 
found him here, and gone to live in his lodge, he 
would have treated you better than any man in the 
village. But there 's the Big Crow's lodge yonder, 
next to old Red-Water's. He 's a good Indian for 
the whites, and I advise you to go and live with 
him." 

"Are there many squaws and children in his 
lodge?" said I. 

"No; only one squaw and two or three children. 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 237 

He keeps the rest in a separate lodge by them- 
selves." 

So, still followed by a crowd of Indians, Raymond 
and I rode up to the entrance of the Big Crow's 
lodge. A squaw came out immediately and took our 
horses. I put aside the leather flap that covered the 
low opening, and stooping, entered the Big Crow's 
dwelling. There I could see the chief in the dim 
light, seated at one side, on a pile of buffalo-robes. 
He greeted me with a guttural "How, col^!" I 
requested Reynal to tell him that Raymond and I 
were come to live with him. The Big Crow gave 
another low exclamation. The announcement may 
seem intrusive, but, in fact, every Indian in the vil- 
lage would have deemed himself honored that white 
men should give such preference to his hospitality. 

The squaw spread a buffalo-robe for us in the 
guest's place at the head of the lodge. Our saddles 
were brought in, and scarcely were we seated upon 
them before the place was thronged with Indians, 
crowding in to see us. The Big Crow produced his 
pipe and filled it with the mixture of tobacco and 
shongsasha, or red willow bark. Round and round 
it passed, and a lively conversation went forward. 
Meanwhile a squaw placed before the two guests a 
wooden bowl of boiled buffalo-meat; but unhappily 
this was not the only banquet destined to be inflicted 
on us. One after another, bo3^s and young squaws 
thrust their heads in at the opening, to invite us to 
various feasts in different parts of the village. For 



238 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

half an hour or more we were actively engaged in 
passing from lodge to lodge, tasting in each of the 
bowl of meat set before us, and inhaling a whiff or 
two from our entertainer's pipe. A thunder-storm 
that had been threatening for some time now began 
in good earnest. We crossed over to Reynal's lodge, 
though it hardly deserved the name, for it consisted 
only of a few old buffalo-robes, supported on poles, 
and was quite open on one side. Here we sat down, 
and the Indians gathered round us. 

"What is it," said I, "that makes the thunder?" 

"It's my belief," said Reynal, "that it's a big 
stone rolling over the sky." 

"Very likely," I replied; "but I want to know 
what the Indians think about it." 

So he interpreted my question, which produced 
some debate. There was a difference of opinion. 
At last old Mene-Seela, or Red- Water, who sat by 
himself at one side, looked up with his withered 
face, and said he had always known what the thunder 
was. It was a great black bird; and once he had 
seen it, in a dream, swooping down from the Black 
Hills, with its loud roaring wings; and when it 
flapped them over a lake, they struck lightning from 
the water. 

"The thunder is bad," said another old man, who 
sat muffled in his buffalo-robe ; " he killed my brother 
last summer." 

Reynal, at my request, asked for an explanation ; 
but the old man remained doggedly silent, and would 



The Thunder Fighters. 

Drawn by Frederic Remington. 

The Oregon Trail, 239. 




C^^j tfrfe'a •* 7 ^ 



Cou^ili I 



THE OG ILL ALL All VILLAGE. 289 

not look up. Some time after, I learned how the 
accident occurred. The man who was killed belonged 
to an association which, among other mystic func- 
tions, claimed the exclusive power and privilege of 
fighting the thunder. Whenever a storm which they 
wished to avert was threatening, the thunder-fighters 
would take their bows and arrows, their guns, their 
magic drum, and a sort of whistle, made out of the 
wing-bone of the war-eagle, and, thus equipped, run 
out and fire at the rising cloud, whooping, yelling, 
whistling, and beating their drum, to frighten it 
down again. One afternoon, a heavy black cloud 
was coming up, and they repaired to the top of a hill, 
where they brought all their magic artillery into play 
against it. But the undaunted thunder, refusing to 
be terrified, darted out a bright flash, which sti'uck 
one of the party dead as he was in the very act of 
shaking his long iron-pointed lance against it. The 
rest scattered and ran yelling in an ecstasy of super- 
stitious terror back to their lodges. 

The lodge of my host Kongra-Tonga, or the Big 
Crow, presented a picturesque spectacle that evening. 
A score or more of Indians were seated around it in 
a circle, their dark naked forms just visible by the 
dull light of the smouldering fire in the middle. The 
pipe glowed brightly in the gloom as it passed from 
hand to hand. Then a squaw would drojD a piece of 
buffalo-fat on the dull embers. Instantly a bright 
flame would leap up, darting its light to the very 
apex of the tall conical structure, where the tops of 



240 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the slender poles that suj)ported the covering of hide 
were gathered together. It gilded the features of 
the Indians, as with animated gestures they sat 
around it, telling their endless stories of war and 
hunting, and displayed rude garments of skins that 
hung around the lodge ; the bow, quiver, and lance, 
suspended over the resting-place of the chief, and 
the rifles and powder-horns of the two white guests. 
For a moment all would be bright as day ; then the 
flames would die out; fitful flashes from the embers 
would illumine the lodge, and then leave it in dark- 
ness. Then the light would wholly fade, and the 
lodge and all within it be involved again in obscurity. 
As I left the lodge next morning, I was saluted 
by howling and yelping all around the village, and 
half its canine population rushed forth to the attack. 
Being as cowardly as they were clamorous, they 
kept jumping about me at the distance of a few 
yards, only one little cur, about ten inches long, hav- 
ing spirit enough to make a direct assault. He 
dashed valiantly at the leather tassel which in the 
Dahcotah fashion was trailing behind the heel of my 
moccason, and kept his hold, growling and snarling 
all the while, though every step I made almost jerked 
him over on his back. As I knew that the eyes 
of the whole village were on the watch to see if I 
showed any sign of fear, I walked forward without 
looking to the right or left, surrounded wherever I 
went by this magic circle of dogs. When I came to 
Reynal's lodge I sat down by it, on which the dogs 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 241 

dispersed growling to their respective quarters. Only 
one large white one remained, running about before 
me and showing his teeth. I called him, but he only 
growled the more. I looked at him well. He was 
fat and sleek ; just such a dog as I wanted. " My 
friend," thought I, "you shall pay for this! I will 
have you eaten this very morning I " 

I intended that day to give the Indians a feast, by 
way of conveying a favorable impression of my char- 
acter and dignity ; and a white dog is the dish which 
the customs of the Dahcotah prescribe for all occa- 
sions of formality and importance. I consulted 
Reynal: he soon discovered that an old woman in 
the next lodge was owner of the white dog. I took 
a gaudy cotton handkerchief, and, laying it on the 
ground, arranged some vermilion, beads, and other 
trinkets upon it. Then the old squaw was sum- 
moned. I pointed to the dog and to the handker- 
chief. She gave a scream of delight, snatched up 
the prize, and vanished with it into her lodge. For 
a few more trifles, I engaged the services of two 
other squaws, each of whom took the white dog by 
one of his paws, and led him away behind the lodges. 
Having killed him, they threw him into a fire to 
singe; then chopped him up and put him into two 
large kettles to boil. Meanwhile I told Raymond to 
fry in buffalo fat what little flour we had left, and 
also to make a kettle of tea as an additional luxury. 

The Big Crow's squaw was briskly at work sweep- 
ing out the lodge for the approaching festivit3% I 

16 



242 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

confided to my host himself the task of inviting the 
guests, thinking that I might thereby shift from my 
own shoulders the odium of neglect and oversight. 
When feasting is in question, one hour of the 
day serves an Indian as well as another. My enter- 
tainment came off at about eleven o'clock. At that 
hour, Reynal and Raymond walked across the area of 
the village, to the admiration of the inhabitants, 
carrying the two kettles of dog-meat slung on a pole 
between them. These they placed in the centre of 
the lodge, and then went back for the bread and the 
tea. Meanwhile I had put on a pair of brilliant 
moccasons, and substituted for my old buck-skin 
frock a coat, which I had brought with me in view 
of such public occasions. I also made careful use of 
the razor, an operation which no man will neglect who 
desires to gain the good opinion of Indians. Thus 
attired, I seated myself between Reynal and Raymond 
at the head of the lodge. Only a few minutes elapsed 
before all the guests had come in and were seated on 
the ground, wedged together in a close circle. Each 
brought with him a wooden bowl to hold his share of 
the repast. When all were assembled, two of the 
officials called "soldiers" by the white men came 
forward with ladles made of the horn of the Rocky 
Mountain sheep, and began to distribute the feast, 
assigning a double share to the old men and chiefs. 
The dog vanished with astonishing celerity, and each 
guest turned his dish bottom upward to show that all 
was sfone. Then the bread was distributed in its 



THE OGILLALLAII VILLAGE. 243 

turn, and finally the tea. As the "soldiers" poured 
it out into the same wooden bowls that had served 
for the substantial part of the meal, I thought it had 
a particularly curious and uninviting color. 

"Oh," said Rej-nal, "there was not tea enough, 
so I stirred some soot in the kettle, to make it look 
strong." 

Fortunately an Indian's palate is not very discrimi- 
nating. The tea was well sweetened, and that was 
all they cared for. 

Now, the feast being over, the time for speech- 
making was come. The Big Crow produced a flat 
piece of wood on which he cut up tobacco and shong- 
sasha, and mixed them in due proportions. The 
pipes were filled and passed from hand to hand 
around the company. Then I began my speech, each 
sentence being interpreted by Reynal as I went on, 
and echoed by the whole audience with the usual 
exclamations of assent and approval. As nearly as 
I can recollect, it was as follows : — 

"I had come," I told them, "from a country so far 
distant, that at the rate they travel, they could not 
reach it in a year." 

"How! how!" 

"There the Meneaska were more numerous than 
the blades of grass on the prairie. The squaws were 
far more beautiful than any they had ever seen, and 
all the men were brave warriors." 

"Howl how! how!" 

I was assailed by twinges of conscience as I uttered 



244 THE OPtEGOX TRAIL. 

these hist words. But I recovered mj'self and began 
again. 

" While I was living in the Meneaska lodges, I 
had heard of the Ogillallah, how great and brave a 
nation they were, how they loved the whites, and 
how well they could hunt the buffalo and strike their 
enemies. I resolved to come and see if all that I 
heard was true." 

" How ! how ! how ! how ! " 

" As I had come on horseback through the moun- 
tains, I had been able to bring them only a very few 
presents." 

"How!" 

" But I had enough tobacco to give them all a small 
piece. They might smoke it and see how much 
better it was than the tobacco which they got from 
the traders." 

"How! how! how!" 

" I had plenty of powder, lead, knives, and tobacco 
at Fort Laramie. These I was anxious to give them, 
and if any of them should come to the fort before I 
went away, I would make them handsome presents." 

"How! how! how! how!" 

Raymond then cut up and distributed among them 
two or three pounds of tobacco, and old INIene-Seela 
began to make a reply. It was long, but the follow- 
ing was the pith of it. 

"He had always loved the whites. They were 
the wisest people on earth. He believed they could 
do anything, and he was always glad when any of 



THE OGILLALLAII VILLAGE. 245 

them came to live in the Ogillallah lodges. It was 
true I had not made them many presents, but the 
reason of it was plain. It was clear that I liked 
them, or I never should have come so far to find 
their village." 

Several other speeches of similar import followed, 
and then, this more serious matter being disposed of, 
there was an interval of smoking, laughing, and con- 
versation. Old Mene-Seela suddenly interrupted it 
with a loud voice : — 

" Now is a good time, " he said, " when all the old 
men and chiefs are here together, to decide what the 
people shall do. We came over the mountains to 
make our lodges for next year. Our old ones are 
good for nothing ; they are rotten and worn out. But 
we have been disappointed. We have killed buffalo- 
bulls enough, but we have found no herds of cows, 
and the skins of bulls are too thick and heavy for 
our squaws to make lodges of. There must be plenty 
of cows about the Medicine Bow Mountain. We 
ought to go there. To be sure, it is farther westward 
than we have ever been before, and perhaps the 
Snakes will attack us, for those hunting-grounds 
belong to them. But we must have new lodges at 
any rate; our old ones will not serve for another 
year. We ought not to be afraid of the Snakes. 
Our warriors are brave, and they are all ready foi 
war. Besides, we have three white men with their 
rifles to help us." 

This speech produced a good deal of debate. As 



246 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Reynal did not interpret what was said, I could only 
judge of the meaning by the features and gestures of 
the speakers. At the end of it, however, the greater 
number seemed to have fallen in with Mene-Seela's 
opinion. A short silence followed, and then the old 
man struck up a discordant chant, which I was told 
was a song of thanks for the entertainment I had 
given them. 

"Now," said he, "let us go and give the white 
men a chance to breathe." 

So the company all dispersed into the open air, and 
for some time the old chief was walking round the 
village, singing his song in praise of the feast, after 
the custom of the nation. 

At last the day drew to a close; and as the sun 
went down, the horses came trooping from the sur- 
rounding plains to be picketed before the dwellings 
of their respective masters. Soon within the great 
circle of lodges appeared another concentric circle of 
restless horses; and here and there fires glowed and 
flickered amid the gloom, on the dusky figures 
around them. I went over and sat by the lodge of 
Reynal. The Eagle-Feather, who was a son of 
Mene-Seela, and brother of my host the Big Crow, 
was seated there already, and I asked him if the vil- 
lage would move in the morning. He shook his 
head, and said that nobody could tell, for since old 
Mahto-Tatonka had died, the people had been like 
children that did not know their own minds. They 
were no better than a body without a head. So I, as 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 247 

well as the Indians themselves, fell asleep that night 
without knowing whether we should set out in the 
morning towards the country of the Snakes. 

At daybreak, however, as I was coming up from 
the river after my morning's ablutions, I saw that a 
movement was contemplated. Some of the lodges 
were reduced to nothing but bare skeletons of poles ; 
the leather covering of others was flapping in the 
wind as the squaws pulled it off. One or two chiefs 
of note had resolved, it seemed, on moving; and so 
having set their squaws at work, the example was 
followed by the rest of the village. One by one the 
lodges were sinking down in rapid succession, and 
where the great circle of the village had been only a 
few moments before, nothing now remained but a ring 
of horses and Indians, crowded in confusion together. 
The ruins of the lodges were spread over the ground, 
together ^vith kettles, stone mallets, great ladles of 
horn, buffalo-robes, and cases of painted hide, filled 
with dried meat. Squaws bustled about in busy 
preparation, the old hags screaming to one another 
at the stretch of their leathern lungs. The shaggy 
horses were patiently standing while the lodge-poles 
were lashed to their sides, and the baggage piled 
upon their backs. The dogs, with tongues lolling 
out, lay lazily panting, and waiting for the time of 
departure. Each warrior sat on the ground by the 
decaying embers of his fire, unmoved amid the con- 
fusion, holding in his hand the long trail-rope of his 
horse. 



248 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

As their preparations were completed, each family 
moved off the ground. The crowd was rapidly melt- 
ing away. I could see them crossing the river, and 
passing in quick succession along the profile of the 
hill on the farther side. When all were gone, I 
mounted and set out after them, followed by Ray- 
mond, and, as we gained the summit, the whole 
village came in view at once, straggling away for 
a mile or more over the barren plains before us. 
Everywhere glittered the iron points of lances. The 
sun never shone upon a more strange array. Here 
were the heavy-laden pack-horses, some wretched old 
woman leading them, and two or three children cling- 
ing to their backs. Here were mules or ponies cov- 
ered from head to tail with gaudy trappings, and 
mounted by some gay young squaw, grinning bash- 
fulness and pleasure as the Meneaska looked at her. 
Boys with miniature bows and arrows wandered over 
the plains, little naked children ran along on foot, 
and numberless dogs scampered among the feet of 
the horses. The young braves, gaudy with paint 
and feathers, rode in groups among the crowd, often 
galloping, two or three at once along the line, to try 
the speed of their horses. Here and there you might 
see a rank of sturdy pedestrians stalking along in 
their white buffalo-robes. These were the dignitaries 
of the village, the old men and warriors, to whose 
age and experience that wandering democracy yielded 
a silent deference. With the rough prairie and the 
broken hills for its background, the restless scene 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 249 

was striking and picturesque beyond description. 
Days and weeks made me familiar with it, but never 
impaired its effect upon my fancy. 

As we moved on, the broken column grew yet 
more scattered and disorderly, until, as we approached 
the foot of a hill, I saw the old men before mentioned 
seating themselves in a line upon the ground, in 
advance of the whole. They lighted a pipe and sat 
smoking, laughing, and telling stories, while the 
people, stopping as they successively came up, were 
soon gathered in a crowd behind them. Then the 
old men rose, drew their buffalo-robes over their 
shoulders, and strode on as before. Gaining the top 
of the hill, we found a steep declivity before us. 
There was not a minute's pause. The whole de- 
scended in a mass, amid dust and confusion. The 
horses braced their feet as they slid down, women 
and children screamed, dogs yelped as they were 
trodden upon, while stones and earth went rolling 
to the bottom. In a few moments I could see the 
village from the summit, spreading again far and 
wide over the plain below. 

At our encampment that afternoon I was attacked 
anew by my old disorder. In half an hour the 
strength that I had been gaining for a week past had 
vanished again, and I became like a man in a dream. 
But at sunset I lay down in the Big Crow's lodge 
and slept, totally unconscious till the morning. The 
first thing that awakened me was a hoai'se flapping 
over my head, and a sudden light that poured in 



\ 



250 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

upon me. The camp was breaking up, and the 
sqaaws were moving the covering from the lodge. 
I arose and shook off my blanket with the feeling of 
perfect health; but scarcely had I gained my feet 
when a sense of my helpless condition was once more 
forced upon me, and I found myself scarcely able to 
stand. Raymond had brought up Pauline and the 
mule, and I stooped to raise my saddle from the 
ground. My strength was unequal to the task. 
"You must saddle her," said I to Raymond, as I sat 
down again on a pile of buffalo-robes. He did so, 
and with a painful effort I mounted. As we were 
passing over a great plain, surrounded by long broken 
ridges, I rode slowly in advance of the Indians with 
thoughts that wandered far from the time and the 
place. Suddenly the sky darkened, and thunder began 
to mutter. Clouds were rising over the hills, as dark 
as the first forebodings of an approaching calamity; 
and in a moment all around was wrapped in shadow. 
I looked behind. The Indians had stopped to prepare 
for the approaching storm, and the dense mass of 
savaores stretched far to the right and left. Since 
the first attack of my disorder the effects of rain upon 
me had usually been injurious in the extreme. I had 
no strength to spare, having at that moment scarcely 
enough to keep my seat on horseback. Then, for 
the first time, it pressed upon me as a strong proba- 
bility that I might never leave those deserts. " Well, " 
thought I to myself, "the prairie makes quick and 
sharp work. Better to die here, in the saddle to the 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 251 

last, than to stifle in the hot air of a sick chamber; 
and a thousand times better than to drag out life, as 
many have done, in the helpless inaction of lingering 
disease." So, drawing the buffalo-robe on which I 
sat, over my head, I waited till the storm should 
come. It broke at last with a sudden burst of fury, 
and passing away as rapidly as it came, left the sky 
clear again. My reflections served me no other 
purpose than to look back upon as a piece of curious 
experience; for the rain did not produce the ill 
effects that I had expected. We encamped within 
an hour. Having no change of clothes, I contrived 
to borrow a curious kind of substitute from Reynal; 
and this done, I went home — that is, to the Big 
Crow's lodge — to make the entire transfer that was 
necessary. Half a dozen squaws were in the lodge, 
and one of them taking my arm held it against her 
own, while a general laugh and scream of admiration 
was raised at the contrast in the color of the skin. 
Our encampment that afternoon was not far from 
a spur of the Black Hills, whose ridges, bristling 
with fir-trees, rose from the plains a mile or two on 
our right. That they might move more rapidly 
towards their proposed hunting-grounds, the Indians 
determined to leave at this place their stock of dried 
meat and other superfluous articles. Some left even 
their lodges, and contented themselves with carrjang 
a few hides to make a shelter from the sun and rain. 
Half the inhabitants set out in the afternoon, with 
loaded pack-horses, towards the mountains. Here 



252 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

they suspended the dried meat upon trees, where the 
wolves and grizzly bears could not get at it. All 
returned at evening. Some of the young men declared 
that they had heard the reports of guns among the 
mountains to the eastward, and many surmises were 
thrown out as to the origin of these sounds. For my 
part, I was in hopes that Shaw and Henry Chatillon 
were coming to join us. I little suspected that at 
that very moment my unlucky comrade was lying on 
a buffalo-robe at Fort Laramie, fevered with ivy 
poison, and solacing his woes with tobacco and 
Shakespeare. 

As we moved over the plains on the next morning, 
several young men rode about the country as scouts; 
and at length we began to see them occasionally on 
the tops of the hills, shaking their robes as a signal 
that they saw buffalo. Soon after, some bulls came in 
sight. Horsemen darted away in pursuit, and we could 
see from the distance that one or two of the buffalo 
were killed. Raymond suddenly became insj^ired. 

"This is the country for me! " he said; "if I could 
only carry the buffalo that are killed here every 
month down to St. Louis, I 'd make my fortune in 
one winter; I'd grow as rich as old Papin, or 
Mackenzie either. I call this the poor man's market. 
When I 'm hungry, I 've only got to take my rifle 
and go out and get better meat than the rich folks 
down below can get, with all their money. You 
won't catch me living in St. Louis another winter." 

"No," said Reynal, "you had better say that, 



THE OGILLALLAII VILLAGE. 253 

after you and your Spanish woman almost starved to 
death there. What a fool you were ever to take her 
to the settlements ! " 

"Your Spanish woman ? " said I; "I never heard 
of her before. Are you married to her?" 

"No," answered Raymond; "the priests don't 
marry their women, and why should I marry mine ? " 

This honorable mention of the Mexican clergy 
introduced the subject of religion, and I found that 
my two associates, in common with other white men 
in that country, were as indifferent to their future 
welfare as men whose lives are in constant peril are 
apt to be. Raymond had never heard of the Pope. 
A certain bishop, who lived at Taos or at Santa F^, 
embodied his loftiest idea of an ecclesiastical digni- 
tary. Reynal observed that a priest had been at Fort 
Laramie two years ago, on his way to the Nez Perc^ 
mission, and that he had confessed all the men there, 
and given them absolution. " I got a good clearing 
out myself, that time," said Reynal; "and I reckon 
that will do for me till I go down to the settlements 
again." 

Here he interrupted himself with an oath, and 
exclaimed, "Look! look! The Panther is running 
an antelope ! " 

The Panther, on his black-and-Avhite horse, one of 
the best in the village, came at full speed over the 
hill in hot pursuit of an antelope, that darted away 
like lightning before him. The attempt was made in 
mere sport and bravado, for very few are the horses 



254 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

that can for a moment compete in swiftness with 
this little animal. The antelope ran down the hill 
towards the main body of the Indians, who were 
moving over the plain below. Sharp yells were 
given, and horsemen galloped out to intercept his 
flight. At this he turned sharply to the left, and 
scoured away with such speed that he distanced all 
his pursuers, even the vaunted horse of the Panther 
himself. A few moments after, we witnessed a more 
serious sport. A shaggy buffalo-bull bounded out 
from a neighboring hollow, and close behind him 
came a slender Indian boy, riding without stirrups or 
saddle, and lashing his eager little horse to full 
speed. Yard after yard he drew closer to his gigantic 
victim, though the bull, with his short tail erect and 
his tongue lolling out a foot from his foaming jaws, 
was straining his unwieldy strength to the utmost. 
A moment more, and the boy was close alongside. 
It was our friend the Hail-Storm. He dropped the 
rein on his horse's neck, and jerked an arrow like 
lightning from the quiver at his shoulder. 

"I tell you," said Reynal, "that in a year's time 
that boy will match the best hunter in the village. 
There, he has given it to him ! — and there goes 
another! You feel well, now, old bull, don't you, 
with two arrows stuck in your lights! There, he 
has given him another! Hear how the Hail-Storm 
yells when he shoots! Yes, jump at him; try it 
again, old fellow! You may jump all day before 
you get your horns into that pony! " 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 255 

The bull sprang again and again at his assailant, 
but the horse kept dodging with wonderful celerity. 
At length the bull followed up his attack with a 
furious rush, and the Hail-Storm was put to flight, 
the shagg}^ monster following close behind. The 
boy clung in his seat like a leech, and secure in the 
speed of his little pony, looked round towards us and 
laughed. In a moment he was again alongside the 
bull, who was now driven to desperation. His eye. 
balls glared through his tangled mane, and the blood 
flew from his mouth and nostrils. Thus, still bat- 
tling with each other, the two enemies disappeared 
over the hill. 

Many of the Indians rode at full gallop towards 
the spot. We followed at a more moderate pace, 
and soon saw the bull lying dead on the side of the 
hill. The Indians were gathered around him, and 
several knives were already at work. These little 
instruments were plied with such wonderful address 
that the twisted sinews were cut apart, the ponderous 
bones fell asunder as if by magic, and in a moment 
the vast carcass was reduced to a heap of bloody 
ruins. The surrounding group of savages offered no 
very attractive spectacle to a civilized eye. Some 
were cracking the huge thigh-bones and devouring 
the marrow within; others were cutting away pieces 
of the liver, and other approved morsels, and swal- 
lowing them on the spot with the appetite of wolves. 
The faces of most of them, besmeared with blood 
from ear to ear, looked grim and horrible enough. 



256 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

My friend the White Shield proffered me a marrow- 
bone, so skilfully laid open that all the rich sub- 
stance within was exposed to view at once. Another 
Indian held out a large piece of the delicate lining of 
the paunch; but these courteous offerings I begged 
leave to decline. I noticed one little boy who was 
very busy with his knife about the jaws and throat of 
the buffalo, from which he extracted some morsel of 
peculiar delicacy. It is but fair to say, that only 
certain parts of the animal are considered eligible in 
these extempore banquets. 

We encamped that night, and marched westward 
through the greater part of the following day. On 
the next morning we again resumed our journey. It 
was the seventeenth of July, unless my note-book 
misleads me. At noon Ave stopped by some pools of 
rain-water, and in the afternoon again set forward. 
This double movement was contrary to the usual 
practice of the Indians, but all were very anxious to 
reach the hunting-ground, kill the necessary number 
of buffalo, and retreat as soon as possible from the 
dangerous neighborhood. I pass by for the present 
some curious incidents that occurred during these 
marches and encampments. Late in the afternoon of 
the last-mentioned day we came upon the banlvs of a 
little sandy stream, of which the Indians could not 
tell the name; for they were very ill acquainted with 
that part of the country. So parched and arid were 
the prairies around, that they could not supply grass 
enough for the horses to feed upon, and we were 



THE OGILLALLAII VILLAGE. 257 

compelled to move farther and farther up the stream 
in search of ground for encampment. The country 
was much wilder than before. The })lains were 
gashed with ravines and broken into hollows and 
steep declivities, which flanked our course, as, in 
long scattered array, the Indians advanced up the 
side of the stream. Mene-Seela consulted an extra- 
ordinary oracle to instruct him where the buffalo 
were to be found. When he with the other chiefs 
sat down on the grass to smoke and converse, as they 
often did during the march, tlie old man picked up 
one of those enormous black and green crickets, 
which the Dahcotah call by a name that signifies, 
"They who point out the buffalo." The "Root- 
Diggers," a wretched tribe beyond the mountains, 
turn them to good account by making them into a 
sort of soup, pronounced by certain unscrupulous 
trappers to be extremely rich. Holding the bloated 
insect respectfully between his fingers and thumb, 
the old Indian looked attentively at him and inquired, 
"Tell me, my father, where must we go to-morrow 
to find the buffalo?" The cricket twisted about his 
long horns in evident embarrassment. At last he 
pointed, or seemed to point, them westward. Mene- 
Seela, dropping him gently on the grass, laughed 
with great glee, and said that if we went that way 
in the morning we should be sure to kill plenty of 
game. 

Towards evening we came upon a fresh green 
meadow, traversed by the stream, and deep set 

17 



258 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

among tuU sterile Lluffs. The Indians descended its 
steep bank; and as I was at the rear, I was one of 
the last to reach this point. Lances were glittering, 
feathers fluttering, and the water LeloAV me was 
crowded with men and. horses passing through, while 
the meadow beyond swarmed, with the restless crowd 
of Indians. The sun was just setting, and poured 
its softened light upon them through an opening in 
the hills. 

I remarked to Reynal that at last we had found 
a good 'camping-ground. 

"Oh, it 's very good," replied he, ironically, "espe- 
cially if there is a Snake war-party about, and they 
take it into their heads to shoot down at us from 
the top of these hills. It 's no plan of mine, 'camp- 
ing in such a hole as this." 

The Indians also seemed anxious. High up on the 
top of the tallest bluff, conspicuous in the bright 
evening sunlight, sat a naked warrior on horseback, 
looking around over the neighboring country; and 
Raymond told me that many of the young men had 
gone out in different directions as scouts. 

The shadov/s had rcaehod to the very summit of 
the bluffs before the lodges were erected, and the 
village reduced again to quiet and order. A cry was 
suddenly raised, and men, Avomen, and children came 
running out with animated faces, and looked eagerly 
through the opening in the hills b}- which the stream 
entered from the westward. I could discern afar off 
some dark, heavy masses, passing over the sides of a 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 259 

low hill. They disappeared, and then others fol» 
lowed. These were bands of buffalo-cows. The 
hunting-ground was reached at last, and everything 
promised well for the morrow's chase. Being fatigued 
and exhausted, I lay down in Kongra-Tonga's lodge, 
when Raymond thrust in his head, and called upon 
me to come and see some sport. A number of 
Indians were gathered, laughing, along the line of 
lodges on the western side of the village, and at some 
distance, I could plainly see in the twilight two huge 
black monsters stalking, heavily and solemnly, directly 
towards us. They were buffalo-bulls. The wind 
blew from them to the village, and such was their 
blindness and stupidity that they were advancing 
upon the enemy without the least consciousness of 
his presence. Raymond told me that two young 
men had hidden themselves with guns in a ravine 
about twenty yards in front of us. The two bulls 
walked slowly on, heavily swinging from side to side 
in their peculiar gait of stupid dignity. They ap- 
proached within four or five rods of the ravine where 
the Indians lay in ambush. Here at last they seemed 
conscious that something was wrong, for they both 
stopped and stood perfectly still, without looking 
either to the right or to the left. Nothing of them 
was to be seen but two black masses of shaggy mane, 
with horns, eyes, and nose in the centre, and a part 
of hoofs visible at the bottom. At last the more 
intelligent of them seemed to have concluded that it 
was time to retire. Very slowly, and with an air of 



260 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

tlie gravest and most majestic deliberation, he began 
to turn round, as if he were revolving on a pivot. 
Little by little his ugly brown side was exposed to 
view. A white smoke sprang out, as it were from 
the ground; a sharp report came with it. The old 
bull gave a very undignified jump, and galloped off. 
At this his comrade wheeled about with considerable 
expedition. The other Indian shot at him from the 
ravine, and then both the bulls ran away at full 
speed, while half the juvenile population of the vil- 
lage raised a yell and ran after them. The first bull 
soon stopped, and while the crowd stood looking at 
him at a respectful distance, he reeled and rolled 
over on his side. The other, wounded in a less vital 
part, galloped away to the hills and escaped. 

In half an hour it was totally dark. I lay down 
to sleep, and ill as I was, there was something very 
animating in the prospect of the general hunt that 
was to take place on the morrow. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE HUNTING CAMP. 

Long before daybreak the Indians broke up their 
camp. The women of Mene-Seela's lodge were as 
usual among the first that were ready for departure, 
and I found the old man himself sitting by the embers 
of the decayed fire, over which he was warming his 
Avithered fingers, as the morning was very chill and 
damp. The preparations for moving were even more 
confused and disorderly than usual. While some 
families were leaving the ground, the lodges of others 
were still standing untouched. At this old Mene- 
Seela grew impatient, and walking out to the middle 
of the village, he stood with his robe wrapped close 
around him, and harangued the people in a loud, 
sharp voice. Now, he said, when they were on an 
enemy's hunting-grounds, was not the time to behave 
like children ; they ought to be more active and united 
than ever. His speech had some effect. The delin- 
quents took down their lodges and loaded their pack- 
horses; and when the sun rose, the last of the men, 
women, and children had left the deserted camp. 

This movement was made merely for the purpose 
of finding a better and safer position. So we advanced 
only three or four miles up the little stream, when 



262 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

each family assumed its relative place in the great 
ring of the village, and the sqnaws set actively at 
work in preparing the camp. But not a single war- 
rior dismounted from his horse. All the men that 
morning were mounted on inferior animals, leading 
their best horses by a cord, or confiding them to the 
care of boys. In small parties they began to leave 
the ground and ride rapidly away over the plains to 
the westward. I had taken no food, and not being at 
all ambitious of farther al.)stinence, I went into my 
host's lodge, which his squaws had set up with won- 
derful despatch, and sat down in the centre, as a 
gentle hint that I was hungry. A wooden bowl was 
soon set before me, filled with the nutritious prepara- 
tion of dried meat, called jjemmican by the northern 
voyagers, and wasna by the Dahcotah. Taking a 
handful to break my fast upon, I left the lodge just 
in time to see the last band of hunters disappear over 
the ridge of the neighboring hill. I mounted Pauline 
and galloped in pursuit, riding rather by the balance 
than by any muscular strength that remained to me. 
From the top of the hill I could overlook a wide ex- 
tent of desolate prairie, over which, far and near, little 
parties of naked horsemen were rapidly passing. I 
soon came up to the nearest, and we had not ridden 
a mile before all were united into one large and 
compact body. All was haste and eagerness. Each 
hunter whipped on his horse, as if anxious to be the 
first to reach the game. In such movements among 
the Indians this is always more or less the case ; but 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 263 

it was especially so in the present instance, because 
the head chief of the village was absent, and there 
were but few "soldiers," a sort of Indian police, who 
among their other functions usually assume the direc- 
tion of a buffalo hunt. No man turned to the riofht 
hand or to the left. We rode at a swift canter 
straight forward, up hill and down hill, and through 
the stiff, obstinate growth of the endless wild-sage 
bushes. For an hour and a half the same red shoulders, 
the same long black hair, rose and fell with the motion 
of the horses before me. Very little was said, though 
once I observed an old man severely reproving Ray- 
mond for having left his rifle behind him, when there 
was some probability of encountering an enemy before 
the day was over. As we galloped across a plain 
thickly set with sage-bushes, the foremost riders 
vanished suddenly from sight, as if diving into the 
earth. The arid soil was cracked into a deep ravine. 
Down we all went in succession and galloped in a 
line along the bottom, until we found a point where, 
one by one, the horses could scramble out. Soon 
after, we came upon a wide shallow stream, and as 
we rode swiftly over the hard sand-beds and through 
the thin sheets of rippling water, many of the savage 
horsemen threw themselves to the ground, knelt on 
the sand, snatched a hasty draught, and leaping back 
again to their seats, galloped on as before. 

Meanwhile scouts kept in advance of the party; 
and now we began to see them on the ridges of the 
hills, waving their robes in token that buffalo were 



264 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

visible. These, however, proved to be nothing more 
than old straggling bulls, feeding ui)on the neighbor- 
ing plains, who would stare for a moment at the 
hostile array and then gallop clumsily off. At length 
we could discern several of these scouts making their 
signals to us at once; no longer waving their robes 
boldly from the top of the hill, bnt standing lower 
down, so that they could not be seen from the plains 
beyond. Game worth pursuing had evidently been 
discovered. The excited Indians now urged forward 
their tired horses even more rapidly than before. 
Pauline, who was still sick and jaded, began to 
groan heavily; and her yellow sides were darkened 
with sweat. As we were crowding together over a 
lower intervening hill, I heard Reynal and Raymond 
shouting to me from the left; and, looking in that 
direction, I saw them riding away behind a party of 
about twenty mean-looking Indians. These were the 
relatives of Reynal's squaw, Margot, who, not wish- 
ing to take part in the general hunt, were riding 
towards a distant hollow, where they saw a small 
band of buffalo which they meant to appropriate to 
themselves. I answered to the call by ordering 
Raymond to turn back and follow me. He reluc- 
tantly obeyed, though Reynal, who had relied on 
his assistance in skinning, cutting up, and carrying 
to camp the buffalo that he and his party should 
kill, loudly protested, and declared that we should 
see no sport if we went with the rest of the Indians. 
Followed by Raymond, I pursued the main body of 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 265 

hunters, while Reynal, in a great rage, whipped his 
horse over the hill after his ragamuffin relatives. 
The Indians, still about a hundred in number, gal- 
loped in a dense body at some distance in advance, 
a cloud of dust flying in the wind behind them. I 
could not overtake them until they had stopped on 
the side of the hill where the scouts were standing. 
Here each hunter sprang in haste from the tired 
animal he had ridden, and leaped upon the fresh 
horse he had brought with him. There was not a 
saddle or a bridle in the whole party. A piece of 
buffalo-robe, girthed over the horse's back, served in 
the place of the one, and a cord of twisted hair, lashed 
round his lower jaw, answered for the other. Eagle 
feathers dangled from every mane and tail, as marks 
of courage and speed. As for the rider, he wore no 
other clothing than a light cincture at his waist, and 
a pair of moccasons. He had a heavy whip, with a 
handle of solid elk-horn, and a lash of knotted bull- 
hide, fastened to his wrist by a band. His bow was 
in his hand, and his quiver of otter or panther skin 
hung at his shoulder. Thus equipped, some thirty 
of the hunters galloped away towards the left, in 
order to make a circuit under cover of the hills, that 
the buffalo might be assailed on both sides at once. 
The rest impatiently waited until time enough had 
elapsed for their companions to reach the required 
position. Then riding upward in a body, we gained 
the ridge of the hill, and for the first time came in 
sight of the buffalo on the plain beyond. 



266 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

They were a band of cows, four or five hundred 
in number, crowded together near the bank of a wide 
stream that was soaldng across the sand-beds of the 
valley. This valley was a large circular basin, sun- 
scorched and broken, scantily covered with herbage, 
and surrounded with high barren hills, from an open- 
ing in which we could see our allies galloping out 
upon the plain. The wind blew from that direction. 
The buffalo, aware of their approach, had begun to 
move, though very slowly and in a compact mass. I 
have no farther recollection of seeing the game until 
we were in the midst of them, for as we rode down 
the hill other objects engrossed my attention. Numer- 
ous old bulls were scattered over the plain, and, 
ungallantly deserting their charge at our approach, 
began to wade and plunge through the quicksands of 
the stream, and gallop away towards the hills. One 
old veteran was straggling behind the rest, with one 
of his fore-legs, which had been broken by some acci- 
dent, dangling about uselessly. His appearance, as 
he went shambling along on three legs, was so ludi- 
crous that I could not help pausing for a moment to 
look at him. As I came near, he would try to rush 
upon me, nearly throwing himself down at every 
awkward attempt. Looking up, I saw the whole 
body of Indians full an hundred yards in advance. I 
lashed Pauline in pursuit and reached them just in 
time; for, at that moment, each hunter, as if by a 
common impulse, violently struck his horse, each 
horse sprang forward, and, scattering in the charge 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 267 

in order to assail the entire herd at once, we all 
rushed headlong upon the buffalo. We were among 
them in an instant. Amid the trampling and the 
yells I could see their dark figures running hither and 
thither through clouds of dust, and the horsemen 
darting in pursuit. While we were charging on one 
side, our companions attacked the bewildered and 
panic-stricken herd on the other. The uproar and 
confusion lasted but a moment. The dust cleared 
away, and the buffalo could be seen scattering as 
from a common centre, fl3'ing over the plain singly, 
or in long files and small compact bodies, while 
behind them followed the Indians, riding at furious 
speed, and yelling as they launched arrow after arrow 
into their sides. The carcasses were strewn thickly 
over the ground. Here and there stood wounded 
buffalo, their bleeding sides feathered with arrows; 
and as I rode by them their eyes would glare, they 
would bristle like gigantic cats, and feebly attempt 
to rush up and gore my horse. 

I left camp that morning with a philosophic reso- 
lution. Neither I nor m}'^ horse were at that time fit 
for such sport, and I had determined to remain a 
quiet spectator; but amid the rush of horses and 
buffalo, the uproar and the dust, I found it impos- 
sible to sit still ; and as four or five buffalo ran past 
me in a line, I lashed Pauline in pursuit. We went 
plunging through the water and the quicksands, and 
clambering the bank, chased them through the wild- 
sage bushes that covered the rising ground beyond. 



268 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

But neither her native spirit nor the blows of the 
knotted bull-hide could supply the place of poor 
Pauline's exhausted strength. We could not gain 
an inch upon the fugitives. At last, however, they 
came full upon a ravine too wide to leap over; and 
as this compelled them to turn abruptly to the left, 
I contrived to get within ten or twelve yards of the 
hindmost. At this she faced about, bristled angrily, 
and made a show of charging. I shot at her, and hit 
her somewhere in the neck. Down she tumbled into 
the ravine, whither her companions had descended 
before her. I saw their dark backs appearing and 
disappearing as they galloped along the bottom; 
then, one by one, they scrambled out on the other 
side, and ran off as before, the wounded animal 
following with the rest. 

Turning back, I saw Raymond coming on his black 
mule to meet me; and as we rode over the field 
together, we counted scores of carcasses lying on the 
plain, in the ravines, and on the sandy bed of the 
stream. Far away in the distance, horsemen and 
buffalo were still scouring along, with clouds of dust 
rising behind them; and over the sides of the hills 
long files of the frightened animals were rapidly 
ascending. The hunters began to return. The 
boys, who had held the horses behind the hill, made 
their appearance, and the work of flaying and cut- 
ting up began in earnest all over the field. I noticed 
my host Kongra-Tonga beyond the stream, just 
alighting by the side of a cow which he had killed. 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 269 

Riding up to him, I found him in the act of drawing 
out an arrow, which, with the exception of the notch 
at the end, had entirely disappeared in the animal. 
I asked him to give it to me, and I still retain it as a 
proof, though by no means the most striking one that 
could be offered, of the force and dexterity with 
which the Indians discharge their arrows. 

The hides and meat were piled upon the horses, 
and the hunters began to leave the ground. Raymond 
and I, too, getting tired of the scene, set out for the 
village, riding straight across the intervening desert. 
There was no path, and as far as I could see, no 
landmarks sufficient to guide us; but Raymond 
seemed to have an instinctive perception of the point 
on the horizon towards which we ought to direct our 
course. Antelope were bounding on all sides, and as 
is always the case in the presence of buffalo, they 
seemed to have lost their natural shyness. Bands of 
them would run lightly up the rocky declivities, and 
stand gazing down upon us from the summit. At 
length we could distinguish the tall white rocks and 
the old pine-trees that, as we well remembered, were 
just above the site of the encampment. Still we 
could see nothing of the camp itself, until, mounting 
a grassy hill, we saw the circle of lodges, dingy with 
storms and smoke, standing on the plain at our feet. 

I entered the lodge of my host. His squaw instantly 
brought me food and water, and spread a buffalo- 
robe for me to lie upon ; and being much fatigued, I 
lay down and fell asleep. In about an hour, the 



270 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

entraucG of Kongra-Tonga, with his arms smeared 
with blood to the elbows, awoke me ; he sat down in 
his usual seat, on the left side of the lodge. His 
squaw gave him a vessel of water for washing, set 
before him a bowl of boiled meat, and, as he was 
eating, pulled off his bloody moccasons and placed 
fresh ones on his feet; then outstretching his limbs, 
my host composed himself to sleep. 

And now the hunters, two or three at a time, came 
rapidly in, and each consigning his horses to the 
squaws, entered his lodge with the air of a man 
whose day's work was done. The squaws flung down 
the load from the burdened horses, and vast piles of 
meat and hides were soon gathered before every 
lodge. By this time it was darkening fast, and the 
whole village was illumined by the glare of fires. All 
the squaws and children were gathered about the 
piles of meat, exploring them in search of the daintiest 
portions. Some of these they roasted on sticks before 
the fires, but often they dispensed with this super- 
fluous operation. Late into the night the fires were 
still glowing upon the groups of feasters engaged in 
this savage banquet around them. 

Several hunters sat down by the fire in Kongra- 
Tonga's lodge to talk over the day's exploits. 
Among the rest, Mene-Seela came in. Though he 
must have seen full eighty winters, he had taken an 
active share in the day's sport. He boasted that he 
had killed two cows that morning, and would have 
killed a third if the dust had not blinded him so that 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 271 

he had to drop his bow and arrows and press l)oth 
hands against his eyes to stop the pain. The fire- 
light fell upon his wrinlded face and shrivelled figure 
as he sat telling his story with such inimitable ges- 
ticulation that every man in the lodge broke into a 
laugh. 

Old Mene-Seela was one of the few Indians in the 
village with whom I would have trusted myself alone 
without suspicion, and the only one from whom I 
should have received a gift or a service without the 
certainty that it proceeded from an interested motive. 
He was a great friend to the whites. He liked to be 
in their society, and was very vain of the favors he 
had received from them. He told me one afternoon, 
as we were sitting together in his son's lodge, that 
he considc^red the beaver and the whites the wisest 
people on earth ; indeed, he was convinced they were 
the same; and an incident which had happened to 
him longf before had assured him of this. So he 
began the following story, and as the pipe passed in 
turn to him, Reynal availed himself of these inter- 
ruptions to translate what had preceded. But the 
old man accompanied his words with such admirable 
pantomime that translation was hardly necessary. 

He said that when he was very young, and had 
never yet seen a white man, he and three or four of 
his companions were out on a beaver hunt, and he 
crawled into a large beaver-lodge, to see what was 
there. Sometimes he crept on his hands and knees, 
sometimes he was obliged to swim, and sometimes to 



272 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

lie flat on his face and drag himself along. In this 
way he crawled a great distance under ground. It 
was very dark, cold, and close, so that at last he was 
almost suffocated, and fell into a swoon. When 
he began to recover, he could just distinguish the 
voices of his companions outside, who had given him 
Uf) for lost, and were singing his death-song. At 
first he could see nothing, but soon discerned some- 
thing white before him, and at length plainly dis- 
tinguished three people, entirely white, one man and 
two women, sitting at the edge of a black pool of 
water. He became alarmed, and thought it high 
time to retreat. Having succeeded, after great 
trouble, in reaching daylight again, he went to the 
spot directly above the pool of water where he had 
seen the three mysterious beings. Here ne beat a 
hole with his war-club in the ground, and sat down 
to watch. In a moment the nose of an old male 
beaver appeared at the opening. Mene-Seela instantly 
seized him and dragged him up, when two other 
beavers, both females, thrust out their heads, and 
these he served in the same way. "These," said the 
old man, concluding his story, for which he was 
probably indebted to a dream, " must have been the 
three white people whom I saw sitting at the edge of 
the water." 

Mene-Seela was the grand depositary of the legends 
and traditions of the village. I succeeded, however, 
in getting from him only a few fragments. Like all 
Indians, he was excessively superstitious, and con- 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 273 

tinually saw some reason for withholding his stories. 
"It is a bad thing," he would say, "to tell the tales 
in summer. Stay with us till next winter, and I will 
tell you everything I know; but now our war- 
parties are going out, and our young men will be 
killed if I sit down to tell stories before the frost 
begins." 

But to leave this digression. We remained en- 
camped on this spot five days, during three of which 
the hunters were at work incessantly, and immense 
quantities of meat and hides were brought in. Great 
alarm, however, prevailed in the village. All were 
on the alert. The young men ranged the country as 
scouts, and the old men paid careful attention to 
omens and prodigies, and especially to their dreams. 
In order to convey to the enemy (who, if they were 
in the neighborhood, must inevitably have known of 
our presence) the impression that we were constantly 
on the watch, piles of sticks and stones were erected 
on all the surrounding hills, in such a manner as to 
appear at a distance like sentinels. Often, even to 
this hour, that scene will rise before my mind like a 
visible reality: the tall white rocks; the old pine- 
trees on their summits; the sandy stream that ran 
along their bases and half encircled the village; and 
the wild-sage bushes, with their dull green hue and 
their medicinal odor, that covered all the neighboring 
declivities. Hour after hour the squaws would pass 
and repass with their vessels of water between the 
stream and the lodges. For the most part, no one 

18 



274 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

was to be seen in the camp but women and children, 
two or three superannuated t>ld men, and a few lazy 
and worthless young ones. These, together with the 
dogs, now grown fat and good-natured with the 
abundance in the camp, were its only tenants. Still 
it presented a busy and bustling scene. In all 
quarters the meat, hung on cords of hide, was drying 
in the sun, and around the lodges, the squaws, young 
and old, were laboring on the fresh hides stretched 
upon the ground, scraping the hair from one side and 
the still adhering flesh from the other, and rubbing 
into them the brains of the buffalo, in order to render 
them soft and pliant. 

In mercy to myself and my horse, I did not go out 
with the hunters after the first day. Of late, how- 
ever, I had been gaining strength rapidly, as was 
always the case upon every respite of my disorder. I 
was soon able to walk with ease. Raymond and I 
would go out upon tlie neighboring prairies to shoot 
antelope, or sometimes to assail straggling buffalo, on 
foot; an attempt in Avhich we met with rather indif- 
ferent success. As I came out of Kongra-Tonga's 
lodge one morning, Reynal called to me from the 
opposite side of the village, and asked me over to 
breakfast. The breakfast was a substantial one. It 
consisted of the rich, juicy hump-ribs of a fat cow ; a 
repast absolutely unrivalled in its way. It was 
roasting before the fire, impaled upon a stout stick, 
which Reynal took up and planted in the ground 
before his lodge ; when he, with Raymond and myself, 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 275 

taking our seats arountl it, nnslieatlied our knives 
and assailed it with good will. In spite of all 
medical experience, this solid fare, without bread or 
salt, seemed to agree with me admirably. 

" We shall have strangers here before night, " said 
Rejaial. 

"How do yon know that?" I asked. 

" I dreamed so. I am as good at dreaming as an 
Indian. There 's the Hail-Storm ; he dreamed the 
same thing, and he and his crony. The Rabbit, have 
gone out on discovery." 

I laughed at Reynal for his credulity, went over 
to my host's lodge, took down my rifle, walked out 
a mile or two on the prairie, saw an old bull stand- 
ing alone, crawled up a ravine, shot him, and saw 
him escape. Then, exhausted and rather ill-humored, 
I walked back to the village. By a strange coinci- 
dence, Reynal's prediction had been verified ; for the 
first persons whom I saw were the two trappers. 
Rouleau and Saraphin, coming to meet me. These 
men, as the reader may possibly recollect, had left 
our party about a fortnight before. They had been 
trapping among the Black Hills, and were now on 
their way to the Rocky Mountains, intending in a 
day or two to set out for the neighboring Medicine 
Bow. They were not the most elegant or refined of 
companions, yet they made a very welcome addition 
to the hmited society of the village. For the rest of 
that day we lay smoking and talking in Reynal's 
lodge. This indeed was no better than a hut, made 



276 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

of hides stretched on poles, and entirely open in 
front. It was well carpeted with soft buffalo-robes, 
and here we remained, sheltered from the sun, sur- 
rounded by the domestic utensils of Madame Margot's 
household. All was quiet in the village. Though 
the hunters had not gone out that day, they lay 
sleeping in their lodges, and most of the women were 
silently engaged in their heavy tasks. A few young 
men were playing at a lazy game of ball in the area 
of the village; and when they became tired, some 
girls supplied their place with a more boisterous 
sport. At a little distance, among the lodges, some 
children and half-grown squaws were playfully toss- 
ing one of their number in a buffalo-robe, — an ex- 
act counterpart of the ancient pastime from which 
Sancho Panza suffered so much. Farther out on the 
prairie, a host of little naked boys w^ere roaming 
about, engaged in various rough games, or pursuing 
birds and ground-squirrels with their bows and 
arrows ; and woe to the unhappy little animals that 
fell into their merciless, torture-loving hands. A 
squaw from the next lodge, a notable housewife, 
named Weah Washtay, or the Good Woman, brought 
us a large bowl of wasna, and went into an ecstasy 
of delight when I presented her with a green glass 
ring, such as I usually wore with a view to similar 
occasions. 

The sun went down, and half the sky was glowing 
fiery red, reflected on the little stream as it wound 
away among the sage-bushes. Some young men left 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 277 

the village, and soon returned, driving in before 
them all the horses, hundreds in number, and of 
every size, age, and color. The hunters came out, 
and each securing those that belonged to him, ex- 
amined their condition, and tied them fast by long 
cords to stakes driven in front of his lodge. It was 
half an hour before the bustle subsided and tran- 
quillity was restored again. By this time it was 
nearly dark. Kettles were hung over the fires, 
around which the squaws were gathered with their 
children, laughing and talking merrily. A circle of 
a different kind was formed in the centre of the vil- 
lage. This was composed of the old men and war- 
riors of repute, who sat together with their white 
buffalo-robes drawn close around their shoulders ; and 
as the pipe passed from hand to hand, their conversa- 
tion had not a particle of the gravity and reserve 
usually ascribed to Indians. I sat down with them 
as usual. I had in my hand half a dozen squibs and 
serpents, which I had made one day when encamped 
upon Laramie Creek, with gunpowder and charcoal, 
and the leaves of "Fremont's Expedition," rolled 
round a stout lead-pencil. I v/aited till I could get 
hold of the large piece of burning bois-de-vache which 
the Indians kept by them on the ground for lighting 
their pipes. With this I lighted all the fireworks at 
once, and tossed them whizzing and sputtering into 
the air, over the heads of the company. They all 
jumped up and ran off with yeljjs of astonishment 
and consternation. After a moment or two, they 



278 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ventured to come back one by one, and some of the 
boldest, picking up the cases of burnt paper, ex- 
amined them with eager curiosity to discover their 
mysterious secret. From that time forward I enjoyed 
great repute as a "fire-medicine." 

The camp was filled with the low hum of cheerful 
voices. There were other sounds, however, of a 
different kind; for from a large lodge, lighted up 
like a gigantic lantern by the blazing fire within, 
came a chorus of dismal cries and wailings, long 
drawn out, like the howling of Avolves, and a woman, 
almost naked, was crouching close outside, crying 
violently, and gashing her legs with a knife till they 
were covered with blood. Just a year before, a 
young man belonging to this family had been slain 
by the enemy, and his relatives were thus lamenting 
his loss. Still other sounds might be heard; loud 
earnest cries often repeated from amid the gloom, at 
a distance beyond the village. They proceeded from 
some young men who, being about to set out in a few 
days on a war-part}', were standing at the top of a 
hill, calling on the Great Spirit to aid them in their 
enterprise. While I was listening, Rouleau, with a 
laugh on his careless face, called to me and directed 
my attention to another quarter. In front of the 
lodge where Weah Washtay lived, another squaw 
was standing, angrily scolding an old yellow dog, 
who lay on the ground with his nose resting between 
his paws, and his eyes turned sleepily up to her 
face, as if pretending to give respectful attention, 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 279 

but resolved to fall asleep as soon as it was all 
over. 

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" said the 
old woman. " I have fed you well, and taken care 
of you ever since yon v/erc small and blind, and 
could only crawl about and squeal a little, instead of 
howling as you do now. When you grew old, I 
said you were a good dog. You were strong and 
gentle when the load was put on your back, and you 
never ran among the feet of the horses when we were 
ail travelling together over the prairie. But you 
had a bad heart! Whenever a rabbit jumped out 
of the bushes, you were always the first to run after 
him and lead away all the other dogs behind you. 
You ought to have known that it was very dangerous 
to act so. When you had got far out on the prairie, 
and no one was near to help you, perhaps a wolf 
would jump out of the ravine ; and then what could 
you do ? You would certainly have been killed, for 
no dog can fight well with a load on his back. Only 
three days ago you ran off in that way, and turned 
over the bag of wooden pins with which I used to 
fasten up the front of the lodge. Look wp there, and 
you will see that it is all flapping open. And now 
to-night you have stolen a great piece of fat meat 
which was roasting before the fire for my children. 
I tell you, you have a bad heart, and you must 
die!" 

So saying, the squaw went into the lodge, and 
coming out with a large stone mallet, killed the 



280 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

unfortunate dog at one blow. This speech is worthy 
of notice, as illustrating a curious characteristic of 
the Indians, v/ho ascribe intelligence and a power of 
understanding speech to the inferior animals; to 
whom, indeed, according to many of their traditions, 
they are linked in close affinity ; and the}- even claim 
the honor of a lineal descent from bears, wolves, 
deer, or tortoises. 

As it grew late, I walked across the village to the 
lodge of my host, Kongra-Tonga. As I entered I 
saw him, by the blaze of the fire in the middle, 
reclining half asleep in his usual place. His couch 
was by no means an uncomfortable one. It consisted 
of buffalo-robes, laid together on the ground, and a 
pillow made of whitened deer-skin, stuffed with 
feathers and ornamented with beads. At his back 
was a light framework of poles and slender reeds, 
against which he could lean with ease when in a sit- 
ting posture ; and at the top of it, just above his 
head, hung his bow and quiver. His squaw, a laugh- 
ing, broad-faced woman, apparently had not yet 
completed her domestic arrangements, for she was 
bustling about the lodge, pulling over the utensils 
and the bales of dried meat that were ranged care- 
fully around it. Unhappily, she and her partner were 
not the only tenants of the dwelling ; for half a dozen 
children were scattered about, sleeping in every 
imaginable posture. My saddle was in its place at 
tlie head of the lodge, and a buffalo-robe was spread 
on the ground before it. Wrapping myself in my 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 281 

blanket, I lay down ; but had I not been extremely 
fatigued, the noise in the next lodge would have 
prevented my sleeping. There Avas the monotonous 
thumping of the Indian drum, mixed with occasional 
sharp yells, and a chorus chanted by twenty voices. 
A grand scene of gambling was going forward with 
all the appropriate formalities. The players were 
staking on the chances of the game their ornaments, 
their horses, and as the excitement rose, their gar- 
ments, and even their weapons; for desperate gam- 
bling is not confined to the hells of Paris. The men 
of the plains and forests no less resort to it as a relief 
to the tedious monotony of their lives, which alter- 
nate between fierce excitement and listless inaction. 
I fell asleep with the dull notes of the drum still 
sounding on my ear; but these orgies lasted without 
intermission till daylight. I was soon awakened by 
one of the children crawling over me, while another 
larger one was tugging at my blanket and nestling 
himself in a very disagreeable proximity. I imme- 
diately repelled these advances by punching the heads 
of these miniature savages with a short stick which I 
alwaj^s kept by me for the purpose ; and as sleeping 
half the day and eating much more than is good for 
them makes them extremely restless, this operation 
usually had to be repeated four or five times in the 
course of the night. My host himself was the author 
of another formidable annoyance. All these Indians, 
and he among the rest, think themselves bound to the 
constant performance of certain acts as the condition 



282 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

on which their success in life depends, whether in 
war, love, hunting, or any other employment. These 
"medicines," as they are called, which are usually 
communicated in dreams, are often absurd enough. 
Some Indians will strike the butt of the pipe against 
the ground every time they smoke ; others will insist 
that everything they say shall be interpreted by con- 
traries; and Shaw once met an old man who con- 
ceived that all would be lost unless he compelled 
every white man he met to drink a bowl of cold 
water. My host was particularly unfortunate in his 
allotment. The sj)irits had told him in a dream that 
he must sing a certain song in the middle of every 
night; and regularly at about twelve o'clock his 
dismal monotonous chanting would awaken me, and 
I would see him seated bolt upright on his couch, 
going through his dolorous performance with a most 
business-like air. There were other voices of the 
night, still more inharmonious. Twice or thrice, 
between sunset and dav/n, all the dogs in the village, 
and there were hundreds of them, would bay and 
yelp in chorus; a horrible clamor, resembling no 
sound that I have ever heard, except perhaps the 
frightful howling of wolves that we used sometimes 
to hear, long afterward, when descending the Arkansas 
on the trail of General Kearney's army. This canine 
uproar is, if possible, more discordant than that of 
the wolves. Heard at a distance slowly rising on 
the night, it has a strange unearthly effect, and 
would fearfully haunt the di'eams of a nervous man ; 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 283 

but when you are sleeping in the midst of it, the din 
is outrageous. One long, loud howl begins it, and 
voice after voice takes up the sound, till it passes 
around the whole circumference of the village, and 
the air is filled with confused and discordant cries, at 
once fierce and mournful. It lasts a few moments, 
and then dies away into silence. 

Morning came, and Kongra-Tonga, mounting his 
horse, rode out with the hunters. It may not he 
amiss to glance at him for an instant in his character 
of husband and father. Both he and his squaw, like 
most other Indians, were very fond of their children, 
whom they indulged to excess, and never punished, 
except in extreme cases, when they would throw 
a bowl of cold water over them. Their offspring 
became sufficiently undutiful and disobedient under 
this system of education, which tends not a little to 
foster that wild idea of liberty and utter intolerance 
of restraint which lie at the foundation of the Indian 
character. It would be hard to find a fonder father 
than Kongra-Tonga. There was one urchin in par- 
ticular, rather less than two feet high, to whom he 
was exceedingly attached; and sometimes spreading 
a buffalo-robe in the lodge, he would seat himself 
upon it, place his small favorite upright before him, 
and chant in a low tone some of the words used as an 
accompaniment to the war-dance. The little fellow, 
who could just manage to balance himself by stretch- 
ing out both arms, would lift his feet and turn slowly 
round and round in time to his father's music, while 



284 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

my host would laugh with delight, and look smiling 
up into my face to see if I were admiring this preco- 
cious performance of his offspring. In his capacity 
of husband he was less tender. The squaw who lived 
in the lodge with him had been his partner for many 
years. She took good care of his children and his 
household concerns. He liked her well enough, and 
as far as I could see, they never quarrelled; but his 
warmer affections were reserved for younger and 
more recent favorites. Of these he had at present 
only one, who lived in a lodge apart from his own. 
One day while in this camp, he became displeased 
with her, pushed her out, threw after her her orna- 
ments, dresses, and everything she had, and told her 
to go home to her father. Having consummated 
this summary divorce, for which he could show good 
reasons, he came back, seated himself in his usual 
place, and began to smoke with an air of the utmost 
tranquillity and self-satisfaction. 

I was sitting in the lodge with him on that very 
afternoon, when I felt some curiosity to learn the 
history of the numerous scars that appeared on his 
naked body. Of some of them, however, I did not 
venture to inquire, for I already understood their 
origin. Each of his arms was marked as if deeply 
gashed with a knife at regular intervals, and there 
were other scars also, of a different character, on his 
back and on either breast. They were the traces of 
the tortures which these Indians, in common with a 
few other tribes, inflict upon themselves at certain 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 285 

seasons; in part, it may be, to gain tlie glory of 
courage and endurance, but chiefly as an act of self- 
sacrifice to secure the favor of the spirits. The scars 
upon the breast and back were produced by running 
through the flesh strong splints of wood, to which 
heavy buffalo-skulls are fastened by cords of hide, 
and the wretch runs forward with all his strength, 
assisted by two companions, who take hold of each 
arm, until the flesh tears apart and the skulls are left 
behind. Others of Kongra-Tonga's scars were the 
result of accidents ; but he had many received in war. 
He was one of the most noted warriors in the village. 
In the course of his life he had slain, as he boasted 
to me, fourteen men ; and though, like other Indians, 
he was a braggart and liar, yet in this statement 
common report bore him out. Being flattered by my 
inquiries, he told me tale after tale, true or false, of 
his warlike exploits; and there was one among the 
rest illustrating the worst features of Indian char- 
acter too well for me to omit it. Pointing out of the 
opening of the lodge towards the Medicine Bow 
Mountain, not many miles distant, he said that he 
was there a few summers ago with a war-party of his 
young men. Here they found two Snake Indians, 
hunting. They shot one of them with arrows, and 
chased the other up the side of the mountain till they 
surrounded him, and Kongra-Tonga himself, jumping 
forward among the trees, seized him by the arm. 
Two of his young men then ran up and held him fast 
while he scalped him alive. They then built a great 



286 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

fire, and cutting the tendons of their captive's wrists 
and feet, threw him in, and held him down with long 
poles until he was burnt to death. He garnished his 
story with descriptive particulars much too revolting 
to mention. His features were remarkably mild and 
open, without the fierceness of expression common 
among these Indians ; and as he detailed these devil- 
ish cruelties, he looked up into my face with the air 
of earnest simplicity which a little child would wear 
in relating to its mother some anecdote of its youthful 
experience. 

Old Mene-Seela's lodge could offer another illus- 
tration of the ferocity of Indian warfare. A bright- 
eyed, active little boy was living there who had 
belonged to a village of the Gros-Ventre Blackfeet, 
a small but bloody and treacherous band, in close 
alliance with the Arapahoes. About a year before, 
Kongra-Tonga and a party of warriors had found 
about twenty lodges of these Indians upon the plains 
a little to the eastward of our present camp; and 
surrounding them in the night, they butchered men, 
women, and children, preserving only this little boy 
alive. He was adopted into the old man's family, 
and was now fast becoming identified with the 
Ogillallah children, among whom he mingled on equal 
terms. There was also a Crow warrior in the vil- 
lage, a man of gigantic stature and most symmetrical 
proportions. Having been taken prisoner many years 
before and adopted by a squaw in place of a son 
whom she had lost, he had forgotten his old nation- 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 287 

ality, and was now both in act and inclination an 
Ogillallah. 

It will be remembered that the scheme of the grand 
war-party against the Snake and Crow Indians origi- 
nated in this village ; and though this plan had fallen 
to the ground, the embers of martial ardor continued 
to glow. Eleven young men had prepared to go out 
against the enemy, and the fourth day of our stay in 
this camp was fixed upon for their departure. At 
the head of this party was a well-built, active little 
Indian, called the White Shield, whom I had always 
noticed for the neatness of his dress and appearance. 
His lodge too, though not a large one, was the best 
in the village, his squaw was one of the prettiest, and 
altogether his dwelling was the model of an Ogillallah 
domestic establishment. I was often a visitor there, 
for the White Shield, being rather partial to white 
men, used to invite me to continual feasts at all hours 
of the day. Once, when the substantial part of the 
entertainment was over, and he and I were seated 
cross-legged on a buffalo-robe smoking together very 
amicably, he took down his warlike equipments, 
which were hanging around the lodge, and displayed 
them with great pride and self-importance. Among 
the rest was a superb head-dress of feathers. Taking 
this from its case, he put it on and stood before me, 
perfectly conscious of the gallant air which it gave 
to his dark face and his vigorous, graceful figure. He 
told me that upon it were tlie feathers of three war- 
eagles, equal in value to the same number of good 



288 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

horses. He took up also a sbield gayly painted and 
hung with featliers. Tlie effect of these barbaric 
ornaments was admirable. His quiver was made of 
the spotted skin of a small panther, common among 
the Black Hills, from which the tail and distended 
claws were still allowed to hang. The White Shield 
concluded his entertainment in a manner character- 
istic of an Indian. He begged of me a little powder 
and ball, for he had a gun as well as a bow and 
arrows; but this I was obliged to refuse, because I 
had scarcely enough for my own use. Making him, 
however, a parting present of a paper of vermilion, I 
left him quite contented. 

On the next morning the White Shield took cold, 
and was attacked with an inflammation of the throat. 
Immediately he seemed to lose all spirit, and though 
before no warrior in the village had borne himself 
more proudly, he now moped about from lodge to 
lodge with a forlorn and dejected air. At length he 
sat down, close wrapped in his robe, before the lodge 
of Reynal, but when he found that neither he nor I 
knew how to relieve him, he arose and stalked over 
to one of the medicine-men of the village. This old 
impostor thumped him for some time with both fists, 
howled and yelped over him, and beat a drum close 
to his ear to expel the evil spirit. This treatment 
failing of the desired effect, the White Shield with- 
drew to his own lodge, where he lay disconsolate for 
some hours. Making his appearance once more in 
the afternoon, he again took his seat on the ground 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 289 

before Reynal's lodge, holding his throat with his 
hand. For some time lie sat silent with his eyes 
fixed mournfully on the ground. At last he began 
to speak in a low tone. 

"I am a brave man," lie said; "all the young men 
think me a great warrior, and ten of them are ready to 
go with me to the war. I will go and show them the 
enemy. Last summer the Snakes killed my brother. 
I cannot live unless I revenge his death. To-morrow 
we will set out and I will take their scalps." 

The White Shield, as he expressed this resolution, 
seemed to have lost all the accustomed fire and spirit 
of his look, and hung his head as if in a fit of 
despondency. 

As I was sitting that evening at one of the fires, I 
saw him arrayed in his splendid war-dress, his cheeks 
painted with vermilion, leading his favorite war-horse 
to the front of his lodge. He mounted and rode 
round the village, singing his war-song in a loud, 
hoarse voice amid the shrill acclamations of the 
women. Then dismounting, he remained for some 
minutes prostrate upon the ground, as if in an act of 
supplication. On the following morning I looked 
in vain for the departure of the warriors. All was 
quiet in the village until late in the forenoon, when 
the White Shield came and seated himself in his old 
place before us. Reynal asked him why he had not 
gone out to find the enemy. 

"I cannot go," he answered in a dejected voice. 
"I have given my war-arrows to the Meneaska." 

19 



290 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"You have only given him two of your arrows," 
said Reynal. "If you ask him, he will give them 
back again." 

For some time the White Shield said nothing. At 
last he spoke in a gloomy tone, — 

" One of my young men has had bad dreams. The 
spirits of the dead came and threw stones at him in 
his sleep." 

If such a dream had actually taken place it might 
have broken up this or any other war-party, but both 
Reynal and I were convinced at the time that it was 
a mere fabrication to excuse his remaining at home. 

The White Shield was a warrior of noted prowess. 
Very probably, he would have received a mortal 
wound without the show of pain, and endured with- 
out flinching the worst tortures that an enemy could 
inflict upon him. The whole power of an Indian's 
nature would be summoned to encounter such a trial ; 
every influence of his education from childhood would 
have prepared him for it; the cause of his suffering 
would have been visibly and palpably before him, 
and his spirit would lise to set his enemy at defiance, 
and gain the highest glory of a warrior by meeting 
death with fortitude. But when he feels himself 
attacked by a mysterious evil, before whose assaults 
his manhood is wasted, and his strength drained 
away, when he can see no enemy to resist and defy, 
the boldest M^arrior falls prostrate at once. He 
believes that a bad spirit has taken possession of him, 
or that he is the victim of some charm. When suffer- 



Jl 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 291 

ing from a protracted disorder, an Indian will often 
abandon himself to his supposed destiny, pine away 
and die, the victim of his own imagination. The 
same effect will often follow a series of calamities, or 
a long run of ill-luck, and Indians have been known 
to ride into the midst of an enemy's camp, or attack 
a grizzly bear single-handed, to get rid of a life 
supposed to lie under the doom of fate. 

Thus, after all his fasting, dreaming, and calling 
upon the Great Spirit, the White Shield's war-party 
came to nousfht. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE TRAPPERS. 

In speaking of the Indians, I have ahnost forgotten 
two bokl adventurers of another race, the trappers 
Rouleau and Saraphin. These men were bent on a 
hazardous enterprise. They were on their way to 
the country ranged by the Arapahoes, a day's journey 
west of our camp. These Arapahoes, of whom Shaw 
and I afterwards fell in with a large number, are 
ferocious savages, who of late had declared them- 
selves enemies to the whites, and threatened death 
to the first who should venture within their territory. 
The occasion of the declaration was as follows : — 

In the preceding spring, 1845, Colonel Kearney left 
Fort Leavenworth with several companies of dragoons, 
marched to Fort Laramie, passed along tlie foot of 
the mountains to Bent's Fort, and then, turning east- 
ward again, returned to the point whence he set out. 
While at Fort Laramie, he sent a part of his com- 
mand as far westward as Sweetwater, while he him- 
self remained at the fort, and despatched messages to 
the surrounding Indians to meet him there in council. 
Then for the first time the tribes of that vicinity saw 
the white warriors, and, as might have been expected, 



THE TRAPPERS. 293 

they were lost in astonishment at their regular order, 
their gay attire, the completeness of their martial 
equipment, and the size and strength of their horses. 
Among the rest, the Arapahoes came in considerable 
numbers to the fort. They had lately committed 
numerous murders, and Colonel Kearney threatened 
that if they killed any more white men he would turn 
loose his dragoons upon them, and annihilate their 
nation. In the evening, to add effect to his speech, 
he ordered a howitzer to be fired and a rocket to be 
thrown up. INIany of the Arapahoes fell flat on the 
ground, while others ran away screaming with amaze- 
ment and terror. On the following day they with- 
drew to their mountains, confounded at the appearance 
of the dragoons, at their big gun which went off 
tAvice at one shot, and the fiery messenger which they 
had sent up to the Great Spirit. For many months 
they remained quiet, and did no farther mischief. 
At length, just before we came into the country, one 
of them, by an act of the basest treachery, killed two 
white men. Boot and May, who were trapping among 
the mountains. For this act it was impossible to 
discover a motive. It seemed to spring from one 
of those inexplicable impulses which often possess 
Indians, and which appear to be mere outbreaks of 
native ferocity. No sooner was the murder com- 
mitted than the whole tribe were in consternation. 
They expected every day that the avenging dragoons 
would come, little thinking that a desert of nine 
hundred miles lay between them and their enemy. 



294 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

A large deputation of them came to Fort Laramie, 
bringing a valuable present of horses, in atonement. 
These Bordeaux refused to accept. They then asked 
if he would be satisfied with their delivering up the 
murderer himself; but he declined this offer also. 
The Arapahoes went back more terrified than ever. 
Weeks passed away, and still no dragoons appeared. 
A result followed which those best acquainted with 
Indians had predicted. They imagined that fear had 
prevented Bordeaux from accepting their gifts, and that 
they had nothing to apprehend from the vengeance 
of the whites. From terror they rose to the height 
of insolence. They called the white men cowards and 
old women; and a friendly Dahcotah came to Fort 
Laramie with the report that they were determined 
to kill the first white dog they could lay hands on. 

Had a military officer, with suitable powers, been 
stationed at Fort Laramie ; had he accepted the offer 
of the Arapahoes to deliver up the murderer, and 
ordered him to be led out and shot, in presence of 
his tribe, — they would have been awed into tran- 
quillity, and much danger averted; but now the 
neighborhood of the Medicine Bow Mountain was 
perilous in the extreme. Old Mene-Seela, a true 
friend of the whites, and many other of the Indians, 
gathered about the two trappers, and vainly endeav- 
ored to turn them from their purpose ; but Rouleau 
and Saraphin only laughed at the danger. On the 
morning preceding that on which they were to leave 
the camp, we could all see faint white columns of 



THE TRAPPERS. 295 

smoke rising against the dark base of the Medicine 
Bow. Scouts were sent out immediately, and reported 
that these proceeded from an Arapahoe camp, aban- 
doned only a few hours before. Still the two trappers 
continued their preparations for departure. 

Saraphin was a tall, powerful fellow, with a sullen 
and sinister countenance. His rifle had very prob- 
ably drawn other blood than that of buffalo or Indians. 
Rouleau had a broad ruddy face, marked with as 
few traces of thought or care as a child's. His figure 
was square and strong, but the first joints of both his 
feet were frozen off, and his horse had lately thrown 
and trampled upon him, by which he had been 
severely injured in the chest. But nothing could 
subdue his gayety. He went all day rolling about 
the camp on his stumps of feet, talking, singing, and 
frolicking with the Indian women. Rouleau had an 
unlucky partiality for squaws. He always had one, 
whom he must needs bedizen with beads, ribbons, 
and all the finery of an Indian wardrobe ; and though 
he was obliged to leave her behind him during his 
expeditions, this hazardous necessity did not at all 
trouble him, for his disposition was the reverse of 
jealous. If at any time he had not lavished the 
whole of the precarious profits of his vocation upon 
his dark favorite, he devoted the rest to feasting his 
comrades. If liquor was not to be had — and this 
was usually the case — strong coffee would be sub- 
stituted. As the men of tluit region are by no means 
remarkable for providence or self-restraint, whatever 



296 THE OREGOX TRAIL, 

v/as set before them on these occasions, however 
extravagant in price or enormous in quantity, was 
sure to be disj)osed of at one sitting. Like other 
trappers. Rouleau's life was one of contrast and 
variety. It was only at certain seasons, and for a 
limited time, that he was absent on his expeditions. 
For the rest of the year he would lounge about the 
fort, or encamp with his friends in its vicinity, hunt- 
ing, or enjoyiiig all the luxury of inaction; but when 
once in pursuit of the beaver, he was involved in 
extreme privations and perils. Hand and foot, eye 
and ear, must be always alert. Frequently he must 
content himself with devouring his evening meal 
uncooked, lest the light of his fire should attract the 
eyes of some wandering Indian ; and sometimes hav- 
ing made his rude repast, he must leave his fire still 
blazing, and withdraw to a distance under cover of 
the darkness, that his disappointed enemy, drawn 
thither by the light, may find his victim gone, and 
be unable to trace his footsteps in the gloom. This 
is the life led by scores of men among the Rocky 
Mountains. I once met a trapper whose breast was 
marked with the scars of six bullets and arrows, one 
of his arms broken by a shot and one of his knees 
shattered ; yet still, with the mettle of New England, 
whence he had come, he continued to follow his 
perilous calling. 

On the last day of our stay in this camp, the 
trappers were ready for departure. When in the 
Black Hills they had caught seven beavers, and they 



THE TRAPPERS. 297 

now left their skins in charge of Reynal, to be kept 
until their return. Their strong, gaunt horses were 
equipped with rusty Spanish bits, and rude Mexican 
saddles, to which wooden stirrups were attached, 
while a buffalo-robe was rolled up behind, and a 
bundle of beaver-traps slung at the pommel. These, 
together with their rifles, knives, powder-horns, and 
bullet-pouches, flint and steel and a tin cup, composed 
their whole travelling equipment. They shook hands 
with us, and rode away; Saraphin, with his grim 
countenance, was in advance ; but Rouleau, clamber- 
ing gayly into his seat, kicked his horse's sides, 
flourished his whip, and trotted briskly over the 
prairie, trolling forth a Canadian song at the top of 
his voice. Reynal looked after them with his face of 
brutal selfishness. 

"Well," he said, "if they arc killed, I shall have 
the beaver. They '11 fetch me fifty dollars at the 
fort, anyhow." 

This was the last I saw of them. 

We had been five days in the hunting-camp, and 
the meat, which all this time had hung drying in the 
sun, was now fit for transportation. Buffalo-hides 
also had been procured in sufficient quantities for 
making the next season's lodges ; but it remained to 
provide the long poles on which they were to be sup- 
ported. These were only to be had among the tall 
spruce woods of the Black Hills, and in that direc- 
tion therefore our next move was to be made. Amid 
the general abundance which during this time had 



298 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

prevailed in tlie camp, there were no instances of 
individual privation; for although the hide and the 
tongue of the buffalo belong by exclusive right to the 
hunter who has killed it, yet any one else is equally 
entitled to help himself from the rest of the carcass. 
Thus the weak, the aged, and even the indolent 
come in for a share of the spoils, and many a helpless 
old woman, who would otherwise perish from starva- 
tion, is sustained in abundance. 

On the twentj'-fifth of July, late in the afternoon, 
the camp broke up, with the usual tumult and con- 
fusion, and we all moved once more, on horseback 
and on foot, over the plains. We advanced, however, 
but a few miles. The old men, who during the 
whole march had been stoutly striding along on foot 
in front of the people, now seated themselves in a 
circle on the ground, while the families, erecting 
their lodges in the prescribed order around them, 
formed the usual great circle of the camp; mean- 
while these village patriarchs sat smoking and talk- 
ing. I threw my bridle to Raymond, and sat down 
as usual along with them. There was none of that 
reserve and apparent dignity which an Indian always 
assumes when in council, or in the presence of white 
men whom he distrusts. The party, on the contrary, 
was an extremely merry one, and as in a social circle 
of a quite different character, " if there was not much 
wit, there was at least a great deal of laughter." 

When the first pipe was smoked out, I rose and 
withdrew to the lodge of my host. Here I was stoop- 



THE TRAPPERS. 299 

ing, in the act of taking off my powder-horn and 
bullet-pouch, when suddenly, and close at hand, peal- 
ing loud and shrill, and in right good earnest, came 
the terrific yell of the war-whoop. Kongra-Tonga's 
squaAV snatched up her youngest child, and ran out 
of the lodge. I followed, and found the whole vil- 
lage in confusion, resounding with cries and yells. 
The circle of old men in the centre had vanished. 
The warriors, with glittering eyes, came darting, 
weapons in hand, out of the low openings of the 
lodges, and running Avith wild yells towards the 
farther end of the village. Advancing a few rods in 
that direction, I saw a crowd in furious agitation. 
Just then I distinguished the voices of Raymond and 
Reynal, shouting to me from a distance, and, looking 
back, I saw the latter with his rifle in his hand, 
standing on the farther bank of a little stream that 
ran along the outskirts of the camp. He was calling 
to Raymond and me to come over and join him, and 
Raymond, with his usual deliberate gait and stolid 
countenance, was already moving in that direction. 
This was clearly the wisest course, unless we 
wished to involve ourselves in the fray; so I turned 
to go, but just then a pair of eyes, gleaming like a 
snake's, and an aged familiar countenance was thrust 
from the opening of a neighboring lodge, and out 
bolted old Mene-Seela, full of fight, clutching his 
bow and arrows in one hand and his knife in the 
other. At that instant he tripped and fell sprawl- 
ing on his face, while his weapons flew scattering in 



300 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

every direction. The women with loud screams were 
hurrying with their children in their arms to place 
them out of danger, and I observed some hastening 
to prevent mischief, by carrying away all the weapons 
they could lay hands on. On a rising ground close 
to the camp stood a line of old women singing a 
medicine-song to allay the tumult. As I approached 
the side of the brook, I heard gun-shots behind me, 
and, turning back, saw that the crowd had separated 
into two long lines of naked warriors confronting 
each other at a respectful distance, and yelling and 
jumping about to dodge the shot of their adversaries, 
while they discharged bullets and arrows against 
each other. At the same time certain sharp, hum- 
ming sounds in the air over my head, like the flight 
of beetles on a summer evening, warned me that the 
danger was not wholly confined to the immediate 
scene of the fray. So wading through the brook, I 
joined Reynal and Raymond, and we sat down on the 
grass, in the posture of an armed neutrality, to watch 
the result. 

Happily it may be for ourselves, though contrary 
to our expectation, the disturbance was quelled 
almost as soon as it began. When I looked again, 
the combatants were once more mingled together in a 
mass. Though yells sounded occasionally from the 
throng, the firing had entirely ceased, and I observed 
five or six persons moving busily about, as if acting 
the part of peace-makers. One of the village heralds 
or criers proclaimed in a loud voice something which 



THE TRAPPERS. 801 

my two companions were too much engrossed in their 
own observations to translate for me. The crowd 
began to disperse, though many a deep-set black eye 
still glittered with an unnatural lustre, as the war- 
riors slowly withdrew to their lodges. This fortunate 
suppression of the disturbance was owing to a few of 
the old men, less pugnacious than Mene-Seela, who 
boldly ran in between the combatants, and aided by 
some of the "soldiers," or Indian police, succeeded 
in effecting their object. 

It seemed very strange to me that although many 
arrows and bullets were discharged, no one was 
mortally hurt, and I could only account for this by 
the fact that both the marksman and the object of his 
aim were leaping about incessantly. By far the 
greater part of the villagers had joined in the fray, 
for although there were not more than a dozen guns 
in the whole camp, I heard at least eight or ten shots 
fired. 

In a quarter of an hour all was comparatively quiet. 
A group of warriors was again seated in the middle 
of the village, but this time I did not venture to 
join them, because I could see that the pipe, contrary 
to the usual order, was passing from the left hand to 
the right around the circle ; a sure sign that a " medi- 
cine-smoke " of reconciliation was going forward, and 
that a white man would be an intruder. When I 
again entered the still agitated camp it was nearly 
dark, and mournful cries, howls, and wailings re- 
sounded from many female voices. Whether these 



302 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

had any connection with the late disturbance, or 
were merely lamentations for relatives slain in 
some former war expeditions, I could not distinctly 
ascertain. 

To inquire too closely into the cause of the quarrel 
was by no means prudent, and it was not until some 
time after that I discovered what had given rise to it. 
Among the Dahcotah there are many associations or 
fraternities, superstitious, warlike, or social. Among 
them was one called "The Arrow-Breakers," now in 
great measure disbanded and dispersed. In the vil- 
lage there were, however, four men belonging to it, 
distinguished by the peculiar arrangement of their 
hair, which rose in a high bristling mass above their 
foreheads, adding greatly to their apparent height, 
and giving them a most ferocious appearance. The 
principal among them was the Mad Wolf, a warrior 
of remarkable size and strength, great courage, and 
the fierceness of a demon. I had always looked upon 
him as the most dangerous man in the village ; and 
though he often invited me to feasts, I never entered 
his lodge unarmed. The Mad Wolf had taken a fancy 
to a fine horse belonging to another Indian, called the 
Tall Bear; and anxious to get the animal into his 
possession, he made the owner a present of another 
horse nearly equal in value. According to the cus- 
toms of the Dahcotah, the acceptance of this gift 
involved a sort of obligation to make a return ; and 
the Tall Bear well understood that the other had his 
favorite buffalo-horse in view. He, however, accepted 



THE TRAPPERS. 803 

the present without a word of thanks, and, having 
picketed the horse before his h^dge, suffered day after 
day to pass Avithout making the expected return. 
The Mad Wolf grew impatient; and at last, seeing 
that his bounty was not likely to produce the desired 
result, he resolved to reclaim it. So this evening, as 
soon as the village was encamped, he went to the 
lodge of the Tall Bear, seized upon the horse he had 
given him, and led him away. At this the Tall Bear 
broke into one of those fits of sullen rage not uncom- 
mon among Indians, ran up to the unfortunate horse, 
and gave him three mortal stabs with his knife. 
Quick as lightning, the Mad Wolf drew his bow to 
its utmost tension, and held the arrow quivering close 
to the breast of his adversary. The Tall Bear, as 
the Indians who were near him said, stood with his 
bloody knife in his hand, facing the assailant with 
the utmost calmness. Some of his friends and rela- 
tives, seeing his danger, ran hastily to his assistance. 
The remaining three Arrow-Breakers, on the other 
hand, came to the aid of their associate. Their 
friends joined them, the war-cry was raised, and the 
tumult became general. 

The "soldiers," who lent their timely aid in put- 
ting it down, are the most important executive func- 
tionaries in an Indian village. The office is one of 
considerable honor, being confided only to men of 
courage and repute. They derive their authority 
from the old men and chief warriors of the village, 
who elect them in councils occasionally convened for 



S04 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the purpose, and thus can exercise a degree of author- 
ity which no one else in the vilhige would dare to 
assume. While very few Ogillallah chiefs could 
venture without risk of their lives to strike or lay 
hands upon the meanest of their people, the " soldiers, '' 
in the discharge of their appropriate functions, have 
full license to make use of these and similar acts of 
coercion. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE BLACK HILLS. 

We travelled eastward for two days, and then the 
gloomy ridges of the Black Hills rose up before us. 
The village passed along for some miles beneath their 
declivities, trailing out to a great length over the 
arid prairie, or winding among small detached hills 
of distorted shapes. Turning sharply to the left, v/e 
entered a wide defile of the mountains, down the 
bottom of which a brook came winding, lined with 
tall grass and dense copses, amid which were hidden 
many beaver dams and lodges. We passed along 
between two lines of high precipices and rocks piled 
in disorder one upon another, with scarcely a tree, a 
bush, or a clump of grass. The restless Indian boys 
wandered along their edges and clambered up and 
down their rugged sides, and sometimes a group of 
them would stand on the verge of a cliff and look 
down on the procession as it passed beneath. As we 
advanced, the passage grew more narrow; then it 
suddenly expanded into a round grassy meadow, 
completely encompassed by mountains ; and here the 
families stopped as they came up in turn, and the 
camp rose like magic. 

20 



306 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

The lodges were hardly pitched when, with their 
usual precipitation, the Indians set about accomplish- 
ing the object that had brought them there ; that is, 
obtaining poles for their new lodges. Half the popu- 
lation, men, women, and boys, mounted their horses 
and set out for the depths of the mountains. It was 
a strange cavalcade, as they rode at full gallop over 
the shingly rocks and into the dark opening of the 
defile beyond. We passed between precipices, sharp 
and splintering at the tops, their sides beetling over 
the defile or descending in abrupt declivities, brist- 
ling with fir-trees. On our left they rose close to us 
like a wall, but on the right a winding brook with a 
narrow strip of marshy soil intervened. The stream 
was clogged with old beaver-dams, and spread fre- 
quently into wide pools. There were thick bushes 
and many dead and blasted trees along its course, 
though frequently nothing remained but stumps cut 
close to the ground by the beaver, and marked Avith 
the sharp chisel-like teeth of those indefatigable 
laborers. Sometimes we dived among trees, and then 
emerged upon open spots, over which, Indian-like, 
all galloped at full speed. As Pauline bounded over 
the rocks I felt her saddle-girth slipping, and alighted 
to draw it tighter; when the whole cavalcade swept 
past me in a moment, the women with their gaudy 
ornaments tinkling as they rode, the men whooping, 
laughing, and lashing forward their horses. Two 
black-tailed deer bounded away among the rocks; 
Raymond shot at them from horseback; the sharp 



THE BLACK HILLS. 307 

report of his rifle was answered by another equally 
sharp from the opposing cliffs, and then the echoes, 
leaping in rapid succession from side to side, died 
away rattling far amid the mountains. 

After having ridden in this manner six or eight 
miles, the scene changed, and all the declivities were 
covered with forests of tall, slender S2)ruce--trees. 
The Indians began to fall off to the right and left, 
dispersing with their hatchets and knives to cut the 
poles wdiich they had come to seek. I was soon left 
almost alone; but in the stillness of those lonely 
mountains, the stroke of hatchets and the sound of 
voices might be heard from far and near. 

Reynal, who imitated the Indians in their habits 
as well as the worst features of their character, had 
killed buffalo enough to make a lodge for himself and 
his squaw, and now he was eager to get the poles 
necessary to complete it. He asked me to let Ray- 
mond go with him, and assist in the work. I assented, 
and the two men immediately entered the thickest 
part of the wood. Having left my horse in Raymond's 
keeping, I began to climb the mountain. I was weak 
and weary, and made slow progress, often pausing to 
rest, but after an hour, I gained a height whence the 
little valley out of which I had climbed seemed like 
a deep, dark gulf, though the inaccessible peak of 
the mountain was still towering to a much greater 
distance above. Objects familiar from childhood 
surrounded me ; crags and rocks, a black and sullen 
brook that gurgled with a hollow voice deep among 



308 THE OREGOX TRAIL. 

the crevices, a wood of mossy distorted trees and 
prostrate trunks flung down by age and storms, scat- 
tered among tlie rocks, or damming the foaming 
waters of the brook. 

Wild as they were, these mountains were thickly 
peopled. As I climbed farther, I found the broad 
dusty paths made by the elk, as they filed across the 
mountain-side. The grass on all the terraces was 
trampled down by deer; there were numerous tracks 
of wolves, and in some of the rougher and more pre- 
cipitous parts of the ascent, I found footprints dif- 
ferent from any that I had ever seen, and which I 
took to be those of the Rocky Mountain sheep. I 
sat down upon a rock ; there was a perfect stillness. 
No wind was stirring, and not even an insect could 
be heard. I remembered the danger of becoming 
lost in such a place, and fixed my eye upon one of 
the tallest pinnacles of the opposite mountain. It 
rose sheer upright from the woods below, and, by an 
extraordinary freak of nature, sustained aloft on its 
very summit a large loose rock. Such a landmark 
could never be mistaken, and, feeling once more 
secure, I began again to move forward. A white 
wolf jumped up from among some bushes, and leaped 
clumsil}^ away; but he stopped for a moment, and 
turned back his keen eye and grim bristling muzzle. 
I longed to take his scalp and carry it back with me, 
as a trophy of the Black Hills, but before I could 
fire, he was gone among the rocks. Soon after I 
heard a rustling sound, with a cracking of twigs at 



THE BLACK HILLS. 309 

a little distance, and saw moving above the tall 
bushes the branching antlers of an elk. I was in the 
midst of a hunter's paradise. 

Such are the Black Hills, as I found them in July ; 
but they wear a different garb when winter sets in, 
when the broad boughs of the hr-trees are bent to the 
ground by the load of snow, and the dark mountains 
are white with it. At that season the trappers, 
returned from their autumn expeditions, often build 
their cabins in the midst of these solitudes, and live 
in abundance and luxury on the game that harbors 
there. I have heard them tell, how with their tawny 
mistresses, and perhaps a few young Indian com- 
panions, they had spent months in total seclusion. 
They would dig pitfalls, and set traps for the white 
wolves, sables, and martens, and though through the 
whole night the awful chorus of the wolves would 
resound from the frozen mountains around them, yet 
within their massive walls of logs they would lie in 
careless ease before the blazing fire, and in the morn- 
ing shoot the elk and deer from their very door. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 

The camp was full of the newly-cut lodge-poles: 
some, already prepared, were stacked together, white 
and glistening, to dry and harden in the sun ; others 
were lying on the ground, and the squaws, the boys, 
and even some of the warriors, were busily at work 
peeling off the bark and paring them with their 
knives to the proper dimensions. Most of the hides 
obtained at the last camp were dressed and scraped 
thin enough for use, and many of the squaws were 
engaged in fitting them together and sewing them 
with sinews, to form the coverings for the lodges. 
Men were wandering among the bushes that lined 
the brook along the margin of the camp, cutting 
sticks of red willow, or shongsasha, the bark of 
which, mixed with tobacco, they use for smoking. 
Reynal's squaw was hard at work with her awl and 
buffalo sinews upon her lodge, while her proprietor, 
having just finished an enormous breakfast of meat, 
was smoking a social pipe with Raymond and myself. 
He proposed at length that we should go out on a 
hunt. "Go to the Big Crow's lodge," said he, "and 
get your rifle. I '11 bet the gray Wyandot pony 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 311 

against your mare that we start an elk or a black- 
tailed deer, or likely as not, a big-horn before we are 
two miles out of camp. I '11 take my squaw's old 
yellow horse; you can't whip her more than four 
miles an hour, but she is as good for the mountains 
as a mule." 

I mounted the black mule which Raymond usually 
rode. She was a powerful animal, gentle and man- 
ageable enough by nature ; but of late her temper had 
been soured by misfortune. About a v/eek before, I 
had chanced to offend some one of the Indians, who 
out of revenge went secretly into the meadow and 
gave her a severe stab in the haunch with his knife. 
The wound, though partially healed, still galled her 
extremely, and made her even more perverse and 
obstinate than the rest of her species. 

The morning was a glorious one, and I was in 
better health than I had been at any time for the last 
two months. We left the little valley and ascended 
a rocky hollow in the mountain. Very soon we were 
out of sight of the camp, and of every living thing, 
man, beast, bird, or insect. I had never before, 
except on foot, passed over such execrable ground, 
and I desire never to repeat the experiment. The 
black mule grew indignant, and even the redoubtable 
yellow horse stumbled every moment, and kept groan- 
ing to himself as he cut his feet and legs among the 
sharp rocks. 

It was a scene of silence and desolation. Little 
was visible except beetling crags and the bare shingly 



312 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

sides of the mountains, relieved by scarcely a trace of 
vegetation. At length, however, we came upon a forest 
tract, and had no sooner done so than Ave heartily 
wished ourselves back among the rocks again; for 
we were on a steep descent, among trees so thick that 
we could see scarcely a rod in any direction. 

If one is anxious to place himself in a situation 
where the hazardous and the ludicrous are combined 
in about equal proportions, let him get upon a vicious 
mule, with a snaffle bit, and try to drive her through 
the woods down a slope of forty-five degrees. Let 
him have a long rifle, a buckskin frock with long 
fringes, and a head of long hair. These latter ap- 
j)endages will be caught every moment and twitched 
away in small portions by the twigs, which will also 
whip him smartly across the face, while the large 
branches above thump him on the head. His mule, if 
she be a true one, will alternately stop short and dive 
violently forward, and his positions uj^on her back 
will be somewhat diversified. At one time he will 
clasp her affectionately, to avoid the blow of a bough 
overhead; at another, he will throw himself back and 
fling his knee forward against her neck, to keep it 
from being crushed between the rough bark of a tree 
and the ribs of the animal. Reynal v/as cursing in- 
cessantly during the whole way down. Neither of us 
had the remotest idea where we were going; and 
though I have seen rough riding, I shall always retain 
an evil recollection of that five minutes' scramble. 
At last we left our troubles behind us, emerging 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 313 

into the channel of a brook that circied along the 
foot of the descent; and here, turning joyfully to 
the left, we rode at ease over the white pebbles and 
the rippling water, shaded from the glaring sun b}^ 
an overarching green transparency. These halcyon 
moments were of short duration. The friendly brook, 
turning sharply to one side, Avent brawliiig and foam- 
ing down the rocky hill into an abyss, which, as far 
as we could see, had no bottom; so once more we 
betook ourselves to the detested woods. When next 
we came out from their shadow and sunlight, we 
found ourselves standing in the broad glare of day, 
on a bigh, jutting point of the mountain. Before us 
stretched a long, wide, desert valley, winding away 
far amid the mountains. Reynal gazed intently ; he 
began to speak at last: — 

"Many a time, when I was with the Indians, I 
have been hunting for gold all through the Black 
Hills. There 's plenty of it here ; you may be certain 
of that. I have dreamed about it fifty times, and I 
never dreamed yet but what it came out true. Look 
over yonder at those black rocks piled up against 
that other big rock. Don't it look as if there might 
be something there? It won't do for a white man 
to be rummaging too much about these mountains; 
the Indians say they are full of bad spirits; and I 
beheve myself that it 's no good luck to be hunting 
about here after gold. Well, for all that, I would 
like to have one of those fellows up here, from down 
below, to go about with his witch-hazel red, and I '11 



314 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

guarantee that it would not be long before he would 
light on a gold mine. Never mind; we'll let the 
gold alone for to-day. Look at those trees down 
below us in the hollow; we '11 go down there, and I 
reckon we'll get a black-tailed deer." 

But Reynal's predictions were not verified. We 
passed mountain after mountain, and valley after 
valley; we explored deep ravines; yet still, to my 
companion's vexation and evident surprise, no game 
could be found. So, in the absence of better, we 
resolved to go out on the plains and look for an ante- 
lope. With this view we began to pass down a 
narrow valley, the bottom of which was covered with 
the stiff wild-sage bushes, and marked with deep 
paths, made by the buffalo, who, for some inexplicable 
reason, are accustomed to penetrate, in their long, 
grave processions, deep among the gorges of these 
sterile mountains. 

Reynal's eye ranged incessantly among the rocks 
and along the edges of the precipices, in hopes of 
discovering the mountain-sheep peering down upon 
us from that giddy elevation. Nothing was visible 
for some time. At length we both detected some- 
thing in motion near the foot of one of the mountains, 
and a moment afterwards a black-tailed deer stood 
gazing at us from the top of a rock, and then, slowly 
turning away, disappeared behind it. In an instant 
Reynal was out of his saddle, and running towards 
the spot. I, being too weak to follow, sat holding 
his horse and waiting the result. I lost sight of him ; 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 315 

then heard the report of his rifle deadened among 
the rocks, and finally saw him reappear, with a surly 
look, that plainly betrayed his ill success. Again we 
moved forward down the long valley, when soon after 
we came full upon what seemed a wide and very 
shallow ditch, incrusted at the bottom with white 
clay, dried and cracked in the sun. Under this fair 
outside Reynal's eye detected the signs of lurking 
mischief. He called to me to stop, and then alight- 
ing, picked up a stone and threw it into the ditch. 
To my amazement it fell with a dull splash, breaking 
at once through the thin crust, and spattering round 
the hole a yellowish creamy fluid, into which it sank 
and disappeared. A stick, five or six feet long, lay 
on the ground, and with this we sounded the insidious 
abyss close to its edge. It was just possible to touch 
the bottom. Places like this are numerous among 
the Rocky IMountains. The buffalo, in his blind and 
heedless walk, often plunges into them unawares. 
Down he sinks; one snort of terror, one convulsive 
struggle, and the slime calmly flows above his shaggy 
head, the languid undulations of its sleek and placid 
surface alone betraying how the powerful monster 
writhes in his death-throes below. 

We found after some trouble a point where we 
could pass the abyss, and now the valley began to 
open upon plains which spread to the horizon before 
us. On one of their distant swells we discerned 
three or four black specks, which Reynal pronounced 
to be buffalo. 



316 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"Come," said he, "we must get one of tliem. My 
squaw wants more sinews to finish her lodge with, 
and I want some glue myself." 

He immediately put the yellow horse to such a 
gallop as he was capable of executing, while I set 
spurs to the mule, who soon far outran her plebeian 
rival. When we had galloped a mile or more, a large 
rabbit, by ill-luck, sprang up just under the feet of 
the mule, who bounded violently aside in full career. 
Weakened as I was, I was flung forcibly to the 
ground, and my rifle, falling close to my head, went 
off with the shock. Its sharp, spiteful report rang 
for some moments in my ear. Being slightly stunned, 
I lay for an instant motionless, and Reynal, supposing 
me to be shot, rode up and began to curse the mule. 
Soon recovering myself, I arose, picked up the rifle, 
and anxiously examined it. It was badly injured. 
The stock was cracked, and the main screw broken, 
so that the lock had to be tied in its place with a 
string ; yet happily it was not rendered totally unser- 
viceable. I wiped it out, reloaded it, and handing it 
to Reynal, who meanwhile had caught the nuile and 
led her up to me, I mounted again. No sooner had 
I done so, than the brute began to rear and plunge 
with extreme violence; but being now well prepared 
for her, and free from encumbrance, I soon reduced 
her to submission. Then taking the rifle again from 
Reynal, we galloped forward as before. 

We were now free of the mountains and riding 
far out on the broad prairie. The buffalo were still 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 317 

some tv/o miles in advance of us. When \vc came 
near them, we stopped where a gentle ^'ell of the 
plain concealed us, and while I held his h 50, Reynal 
ran forward with his rifle, till I lost sight of him 
beyond the rising ground. A few minutes elapsed: 
I heard the report of his piece, and saw the buffalo 
running away, at full speed on the right ; immediately 
after, the hunter himself, unsuccessful as before, 
came up and mounted his horse in excessive ill- 
humor. He cursed the Black Hills and the buffalo, 
swore that he was a good hunter, which indeed was 
true, and that he had never been out before among 
those mountains without killing two or three deer at 
least. 

We now turned towards the distant encampment. 
As we rode along, antelope in considerable numbers 
were flying lightly in all directions over the plain, 
but not one of them would stand and be shot at. 
When we reached the foot of the mountain-ridge that 
lay between us and the village, we were too impa- 
tient to take the smooth and circuitous route; so 
turning short to the left, we drove our wearied 
animals upward among the rocks. Still more ante- 
lope were leaping about among these flinty hillsides. 
Each of us shot at one, though from a great distance, 
and each missed his mark. At length we reached 
the summit of the last ridge. Looking down we saw 
the bustling camp in the valley at our feet, and 
ingloriously descended to it. As we rode among the 
lodges, the Indians looked in vain for the fresh meat 



318 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

that should have hung behind our saddles, and the 
squaws uttered various suppressed ejaculations, to 
the great indignation of Reynal. Our mortification 
was increased when we rode up to his lodge. Here 
we saw his young Indian relative, the Hail-Storm, 
his light graceful figure reclining on the ground in 
an easy attitude, while with his friend The Rabbit, 
who sat by his side, he was making an abundant 
meal from a wooden bowl of ■ivasna, which the squaw 
had placed between them. Near him lay the fresh 
skin of a female elk, which he had just killed among 
the mountains, only a mile or two from the camp. 
No doubt the boy's heart was elated with triumph, 
but he betrayed no sign of it. He even seemed 
totally unconscious of our approach, and his hand- 
some face had all the tranquillity of Indian self- 
control, — a self-control which prevents the exhibition 
of emotion without restraining the emotion itself. It 
was about two months since I had known the Hail- 
Storm, and within that time his character had remark- 
ably developed. When I first saw^ him, he was just 
emerging from the habits and feelings of the boy 
into the ambition of the hunter and warrior. He had 
lately killed his first deer, and this had excited his 
aspirations for distinction. Since that time he had 
been continually in search of game, and no young 
hunter in the village had been so active or so fortu- 
nate as he. All this success had produced a marked 
change in his character. As I first remembered him, 
he always shunned the society of the young squaws, 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 319 

and was extremely bashful and sheepish in their 
presence ; but now, in the confidence of his new repu- 
tation, he began to assume the airs and arts of a man 
of gallantry. He wore his red blanket dashingly over 
his left shoulder, painted his cheeks every day with 
vermilion, and hung pendants of shells in his ears. 
If I observed aright, he met with very good success 
in his new pursuits; still the Hail-Storm had much 
to accomplish before he attained the full standing of 
a warrior. Gallantly as he began to bear himself 
among the women and girls, he was still timid and 
abashed in the presence of the chiefs and old men; 
for he had never yet killed a man, or stricken the 
dead body of an enemy in battle. I have no doubt 
that the handsome, smooth-faced boy burned with 
desire to flesh his maiden scalping-knife, and I would 
not have encamped alone with him without watching 
his movements with a suspicious eye. 

His elder brother, The Horse, was of a different 
character. He was nothing but a lazy dandy. He 
knew very well how to hunt, but preferred to live by 
the hunting of others. He had no appetite for dis- 
tinction, and the Hail-Storm already surpassed him 
in reputation. He had a dark and ugly face, and 
passed a great part of his time in adorning it with 
vermilion, and contemplating it by means of a little 
pocket looking-glass which I had given him. As for 
the rest of the day, he divided it between eating, 
sleeping, and sitting in the sun on the outside of a 
lodge. Here he would remain for hour after hour, 



320 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

arrayed in all his finery, with au old dragoon's sword 
in his hand, evidently flattering himself that he was 
the centre of attraction to the eyes of the surrounding 
squaws. Yet he sat looking straight forward with a 
face of the utmost gravity, as if wrapped in profound 
meditation, and it was only by the occasional side- 
long glances which he shot at his supjDOsed admirers 
that one could detect the true course of his thoughts. 

Both he and his brother may represent classes in 
the Indian community: neither should the Hail- 
Storm's friend. The Rabbit, be passed by without 
notice. The Hail-Storm and he were inseparable: 
they ate, slept, and hunted together, and shared 
with one another almost all that they possessed. If 
there be anything that deserves to be called romantic 
in the Indian character, it is to be sought for in 
friendships such as this, which are common among 
many of the prairie tribes. 

Slowly, hour after hour, that weary afternoon 
dragged away. I lay in Reynal's lodge, overcome 
by the listless torpor that pervaded the encampment. 
The day's work was finished, or if it were not, the 
inhabitants had resolved not to finish it at all, and 
were dozing quietly within the shelter of the lodges. 
A profound lethargy, the very spirit of indolence, 
seemed to have sunk upon the village. Now and 
then I could hear the low laughter of some girl from 
within a neighboring lodge, or the small shrill voices 
of a few restless children, who alone were moving in 
the deserted area. The spirit of the place infected 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 321 

rae; I could not think consecutively; I was fit only 
for musing and revery, when at last, like the rest, I 
fell asleep. 

When evening came, and the fires were lighted 
round the lodges, a select family circle convened in 
the neighborhood of Reynal's domicile. It was com- 
posed entirely of his squaw's relatives, a mean and 
ignoble clan, among whom none but the Hail-Storm 
held forth any promise of future distinction. Even 
his prospects were rendered not a little dubious by 
the character of the family, less, however, from any 
principle of aristocratic distinction than from the 
want of powerful supporters to assist him in his 
undertakings, and help to avenge his quarrels. 
Raymond and I sat down along with them. There 
were eight or ten men gathered around the fire, 
together with about as many women, old and young, 
some of whom were tolerably good-looking. As the 
pipe passed round among the men, a lively conversa- 
tion went forward, more meriy than delicate, and at 
length two or three of the elder women (for the girls 
were somewhat diffident and bashful) began to assail 
Raymond with various pungent witticisms. Some of 
the men took part, and an old squaw concluded by 
bestowing on him a ludicrous and indecent nickname, 
at which a general laugh followed at his expense. 
Raymond grinned and giggled, and made several 
futile attempts at repartee. Knowing the impolicy 
and even danger of suffering myself to be placed in 
a ludicrous light among the Indians, I maintained 

21 



B22 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

a rigid, inflexible countenance, and wholly escaped 
their sallies. 

In tlie morning I found, to my great disgust, that 
the camp was to retain its position for another day. 
I dreaded its languor and monotony, and, to escape 
it, set out to explore the surrounding mountains. I 
was accompanied by a faithful friend, my rifle, the 
only friend indeed on whose prompt assistance in 
time of trouble I could wholly rely. Most of the 
Indians in the village, it is true, professed good-will 
towards the whites, but the experience of others and 
my own observation had taught me the extreme folly 
of confidence, and the utter impossibility of foreseeing 
to what sudden acts the strange, unbridled impulses 
of an Indian may urge him. When among this 
people danger is never so near as when you are 
unprepared for it, never so remote as when you are 
armed and on the alert to meet it at any moment. 
Nothing offers so strong a temptation to their fero- 
cious instincts as the appearance of timidity, weak- 
ness, or securit3\ 

Many deep and gloomy gorges, choked with trees 
and bushes, opened from the sides of the hills, which 
were shaggy with forests wherever the rocks per- 
mitted vegetation to spring. A great number of 
Indians were stalking along the edges of the woods, 
and boys were whooping and laughing on the moun- 
tains, practising eye and hand, and indulging their 
destructive propensities by killing birds and small 
animals with their little bows and arrows. There 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 323 

was one glen, stretching up between steep cliffs far 
into the bosom of the mountain. I began to ascend 
along its bottom, pushing my way onward among the 
rocks, trees, and bushes that obstructed it. A slender 
thread of water trickled through it, which since issu- 
ing from the heart of its native rock could scarcely 
have been warmed or gladdened by a ray of sunshine. 
After advancing for some time, I conceived myself 
to be entirely alone ; but coming to a part of the glen 
in a great measure free of trees and undergrowth, I 
saw at some distance the black head and red shoulders 
of an Indian among the bushes above. The reader 
need not prepare himself for a startling adventure, 
for I have none to relate. The head and shoulders 
belonged to Mene-Seela, my best friend in the vil- 
lage. As I had approached noiselessly with my 
moccasoned feet, the old man was c|uite unconscious 
of my presence; and turning to a point where I could 
gain an unobstructed view of him, I saw him seated 
alone, immovable as a statue, among the rocks and 
trees. His face was turned upward, and his eyes 
seemed riveted on a pine-tree springing from a cleft 
in the precipice above. The crest of the pine was 
swaying to and fro in the wind, and its long limbs 
waved slowly up and down, as if the tree had life. 
Looking for a while at the old man, I was satisfied 
that he was engaged in an act of worship, or prayer, 
or communion of some kind with a supernatural 
being. I longed to penetrate his thoughts, but I 
could do nothing more than conjecture and speculate. 



324 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

I kneAV that though the intellect of an Indian can 
embrace the idea of an all-wise, all-powerful Spirit, 
the supreme Ruler of the universe, yet his mind will 
not always ascend into communion with a being that 
seems to him so vast, remote, and incomprehensible; 
and when danger threatens, when his hopes are 
broken, and trouble overshadows him, he is prone to 
turn for relief to some inferior agency, less removed 
from the ordinary scope of his faculties. He has a 
guardian spirit, on whom he relies for succor and 
guidance. To him all nature is instinct with mystic 
influence. Among those mountains not a wild beast 
was prowling, a bird singing, or a leaf fluttering, that 
might not tend to direct his destiny, or give warning 
of what was in store for him; and he watches the 
world of nature around him as the astrologer watches 
the stars. So closely is he linked with it that his 
guardian spirit, no unsubstantial creation of the 
fancy, is usually embodied in the form of some living 
thing: a bear, a wolf, an eagle, or a serpent; and 
Mene-Seela, as he gazed intently on the old pine- 
tree, might believe it to enshrine the fancied guide 
and protector of his life. 

Whatever was passing in the mind of the old man, 
it was no part of good sense to disturb him. Silently 
retracing my footsteps, I descended the glen until I 
came to a point where I could climb the precipices 
that shut it in, and gain the side of the mountain. 
Looking up, I saw a tall peak rising among the 
woods. Something impelled me to climb ; I had not 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 325 

felt for many a day such strength and elasticity of 
limb. An hour and a half of slow and often inter- 
mitted labor brought me to the very summit; and 
emerging from the dark shadows of the rocks and 
pines, I stepped forth into the light, and walking 
along the sunny verge of a precipice, seated myself 
on its extreme point. Looking between the mountain- 
peaks to the westward, the pale blue prairie was 
stretching to the farthest horizon, like a serene and 
tranquil ocean. The surrounding mountains were in 
themselves sufficiently striking and impressive, but 
this contrast gave redoubled effect to their stern 
features. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 

When I took leave of Shaw at La Bontd's camp, 
I promised to meet him at Fort Laramie on the first 
of August. The Indians, too, intended to pass the 
mountains and move towards the fort. To do so at 
this point was impossible, because there was no pas- 
sage; and in order to find one, we were obliged to 
go twelve or fourteen miles southward. Late in the 
afternoon the camp got in motion. I rode in com- 
pany with three or four young Indians at the rear, 
and the moving swarm stretched before me, in the 
ruddy light of sunset, or the deep shadow of the 
mountains, far beyond my sight. It was an ill- 
omened spot they chose to encamp upon. When 
they were there just a year before, a war-party of ten 
men, led by The Whirlwind's son, had gone out 
against the enemy, and not one had ever returned. 
This was the immediate cause of this season's war- 
like preparations. I was not a little astonished, 
when I came to the camp, at the confusion of hor- 
rible sounds with which it was filled : howls, shrieks, 
and wailings rose from all the women present, many 
of whom, not content with this exhibition of grief 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 327 

for the loss of tlieir friends and relatives, were gash- 
ing their legs deeply with knives. A warrior in the 
village, who had lost a brother in the expedition, 
chose another mode of displaying his sorrow. The 
Indians, who, though often rapacious, are devoid of 
avarice, will sometimes, when in mourning, or on 
other solemn occasions, give away the whole of their 
possessions, and reduce themselves to nakedness and 
want. The warrior in question led his two best 
horses into the middle of the village, and gave them 
away to his friends; upon which, songs and accla- 
mations in praise of his generosity mingled with the 
cries of the M^omen. 

On the next morning we entered again among the 
mountains. There was nothing in their appearance 
either grand or picturesque, though they were deso- 
late to the last degree, being mere piles of black and 
broken rocks, without trees or vegetation of any kind. 
As we passed among them along a wide valley, I 
noticed Raymond riding by the side of a young 
squaw, to whom he was addressing various compli- 
ments. All the old squaws in the neighborhood 
watched his proceedings in great admiration, and the 
girl herself would turn aside her head and laugh. 
Just then his mule thought proper to display her 
vicious pranks, and began to rear and plunge most 
furiously. Raymond was an excellent rider, and at 
first he stuck fast in his seat ; but the moment after, 
I saw the mule's hind-legs flourishing in the air, and 
my unlucky follower pitching head foremost over her 



328 THE OKEGON TRAIL. 

ears. There was a burst of screams and laughter 
from all the Avomen, in which his mistress herself 
took part, and Raymond was assailed by such a 
shower of witticisms that he was glad to ride forward 
out of hearing. 

Not long after, as I rode near him, I heard him 
shouting to me. lie was pointing towards a detached 
rocky hill that stood in the middle of the valley 
before us, and from behind it a long file of elk came 
out at full speed and entered an opening in the 
mountain. They had scarcely disappeared, when 
whoops and exclamations came from fifty voices 
around me. The young men leaped from their 
horses, flung down their heavy buffalo-robes, and ran 
at full speed towards the foot of the nearest moun- 
tain. Reynal also broke away at a gallop in the same 
direction. " Come on ! come on ! " he called to us. 
" Do you see that band of big-horn up yonder ? If 
there's one of them, there's a hundred!" 

In fact, near the summit of the mountain, I could 
see a large number of small white objects, moving 
rapidly upwards among the precipices, while others 
were filing along its rocky profile. Anxious to see 
the sport, I galloped forward, and entering a passage 
in the side of the mountain, ascended among the 
loose rocks as far as my horse could carry me. Here 
I fastened her to an old pine-tree. At that moment 
Raymond called to me from the right that another 
band of sheep was close at hand in that direction. 1 
ran up to the top of the opening, which gave me a 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 329 

full view into the rocky gorge beyond; and here I 
plainly saw some fifty or sixty sheep, almost within 
rifle-shot, clattering upwards among the rocks, and 
endeavoring, after their usual custom, to reach the 
highest point. The naked Indians bounded up lightly 
in pursuit. In a moment the game and hunters dis- 
appeared. Nothing could be seen or heard but tiie 
occasional report of a gun, more and more distant, 
reverberating among the rocks. 

I turned to descend, and as I did so, could see 
the valley below alive with Indians passing rapidly 
through it, on horseback and on foot. A little farther 
on, all were stopping as they came up; the camp was 
preparing and the lodges rising. I descended to this 
spot, and soon after Reynal and Raymond returned. 
They bore between them a sheep which they had 
pelted to death with stones from the edge of a ravine, 
along the bottom of which it was attempting to 
escape. One by one the hunters came dropping in ; 
yet such is the activity of the Rocky IMountain sheep 
that although sixty or seventy men were out in pur- 
suit, not more than half a dozen animals were killed. 
Of these only one was a full-grown male. He had a 
pair of horns, the dimensions of which were almost 
beyond belief. I have seen among the Indians ladles 
with long handles, capable of containing more than a 
quart, cut out from such horns. 

Through the whole of the next morning we were 
moving forward among the hills. On the following 
day the heights closed around us, and the passage of 



330 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the mountains began in earnest. Before the village 
left its 'camping-ground, 1 set forward in company 
v/ith the Eagle-Feather, a man of powerful frame, 
but with a bad and sinister face. His son, a light- 
limbed boy, rode with us, and another Indian, named 
The Panther, was also of the party. Leaving the 
village out of sight behind us, we rode together up 
a rocky defile. After a while, however, the Eagle- 
Feather discovered in the distance some appearance 
of game, and set off with his son in pursuit of it, 
while I went forward with The Panther. This was 
a mere nom de guerre; for, like many Indians, he 
concealed his real name out of some superstitious 
notion. He was a noble-looking fellow. As he 
suffered his ornamented buffalo-robe to fall in folds 
about his loins, his stately and graceful figure was 
fully displayed; and while he sat his horse in an 
easy attitude, the long feathers of the prairie-cock 
fluttering from the crown of his head, he seemed the 
very model of a wild prairie-rider. He had not the 
same features with those of other Indians. Unless 
his face greatly belied him, he was free from the 
jealousy, suspicion, and malignant cunning of his 
people. For the most part, a civilized white man 
can discover very few points of sympathy between his 
own nature and that of an Indian. With every dis- 
position to do justice to their good qualities, he must 
be conscious that an impassable gulf lies between 
him and his red brethren. Nay, so alien to himself 
do they appear, that, after breathing the air of the 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 331 

prairie for a few months or weeks, he begins to look 
upon them as a troublesome and dangerous species of 
Avild beast. Yet, in the countenance of The Panther, 
I gladly read that there were at least some points of 
sympathy between him and me. We were excellent 
friends, and as we rode forward together through 
rocky passages, deep dells, and little barren plains, 
he occupied himself very zealously in teaching me 
the Dahcotah language. After a while, we came to 
a grassy recess, where some gooseberry-bushes were 
growing at the foot of a rock : and these offered such 
temptation to my companion that he gave over his 
instructions, and stopped so long to gather the fruit, 
that before we were in motion again the van of the 
village came in view. An old woman appeared, lead- 
ing down her pack-horse among the rocks above. 
Savage after savage followed, and the little dell was 
soon crowded with the throng. 

That morning's march was one not to be forgotten. 
It led us through a sublime waste, a wilderness of 
mountains and pine-forests, over vv^hich the spirit of 
loneliness and silence seemed brooding. Above and 
below, little could be seen but the same dark green 
foliage. It overspread the valleys, and enveloped 
the mountains, from the black rocks that crowned 
their summits to the streams that circled round their 
base. I rode to the top of a hill whence I could look 
down on the savage procession as it passed beneath 
my feet, and, far on the loft, could see its thin and 
broken line, visible only at intervals, stretching away 



332 THE OREGON TEAIL. 

for miles among the mountains. On the farthest 
ridge, horsemen were still descending like mere 
specks in the distance. 

I remained on the hill until all had passed, and 
then descending followed after them. A little farther 
on I found a very small meadow, set deeply among 
steep mountains; and here the whole village had 
encamped. The little spot was crowded with the 
confused and disorderly host. Some of the lodges 
Avere already set up, or the squaws perhaps were 
Lusy in drawing the heavy coverings of skin over the 
bare poles. Others were as yet mere skeletons, 
while others still, poles, covering, and all, lay scat- 
tered in disorder on the ground among buffalo-robes, 
bales of meat, domestic utensils, harness, and weapons. 
Squaws were screaming to one another, horses rear- 
ing and plunging, dogs yelping, eager to be dis- 
burdened of their loads, while the fluttering of feathers 
and the gleam of savage ornaments added liveliness 
to the scene. The small children ran about amid the 
crowd, while many of the boys were scrambling 
among the overhanging rocks, and standing with 
their little bows in their hands, looking down upon 
the restless throng. In contrast with the general 
confusion, a circle of old men and warriors sat in the 
midst, smoking in profound indifference and tranquil- 
lity. The disorder at length subsided. The horses 
were driven away to feed along the adjacent valley, 
and the camp assumed an air of listless repose. It 
was scarcely past noon ; a vast white canopy of smoke 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 333 

from a burning forest to the eastward overhung the 
place, and partially obscured the vnys of the sun ; yet 
the heat was almost insupportable. The lodges stood 
crowded together without order in the narrow space. 
Each was a hot-house, within which the lazy pro- 
prietor lay sleeping. The camp was silent as death. 
Nothing stirred except now and then an old woman 
passing from lodge to lodge. The girls and young- 
men sat together in groups, under the pine-trees upon 
the surrounding heights. The dogs lay panting on 
the ground, too languid even to growl at the white 
man. At the entrance of the meadow, there was a 
cold spring among the rocks, completely overshadowed 
by tall trees and dense undergrowth. In this cool 
and shady retreat a number of girls were assembled, 
sitting together on rocks and fallen logs, discussing 
the latest gossip of the village, or laughing and 
throwing water with their hands at the intruding 
Meneaska. The minutes seemed lengthened into 
hours. I lay for a long time under a tree studying 
the Ogillallah tongue, with the aid of my friend The 
Panther. When we were both tired of this, I lay 
down by the side of a deep, clear pool, formed by the 
water of the spring. A shoal of little fishes of about 
a pin's length were playing in it, sporting together, 
as it seemed, very amicably; but on closer observa- 
tion, I saw tliat they were engaged in cannibal war- 
fare among themselves. Now and then one of the 
smallest would fall a victim, and immediately disap- 
pear down the maw of his conqueror. Every moment, 



oo4 THE OREdON TRAIL. 

however, the tja-ant of the pool, a goggle-eyed 
monster al)out three inches long, wonld slowly emerge 
with quivering fins and tail from under the shelving 
bank. The small fry at tins would suspend their 
hostilities, and scatter in a panic at the appearance 
of overwhelming force. 

"Soft-hearted philanthropists," thought I, "may 
sigh long for their peaceful millennium; for, from 
minnows to men, life is incessant war." 

Evening ajDproached at last; the crests of the 
mountains were still bright in sunshine, while our 
deep glen w^as completely shadowed. I left the 
camp, and climbed a neighboring hill. The sun was 
still glaring through the stiff pines on the ridge of 
the western mountain. In a moment he was gone, 
and, as the landscape darkened, I turned again 
towards the village. As I descended, the howling of 
wolves and the barking of foxes came up out of the 
dim woods from far and near. The camp was glow- 
ing with a multitude of fires, and alive with dusky 
naked figures, whose tall shadows flitted, weird and 
ghost-like, among the surrounding crags. 

I found a circle of smokers seated in their usual 
place ; that is, on the ground before the lodge of a 
certain warrior, who seemed to be generally known 
for his social qualities. I sat down to smoke a part- 
ing pipe with my savage friends. That day was the 
first of August, on which I had promised to meet 
Shaw at Fort Laramie. The fort was less than two 
days' journey distant, and that my friend need not 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 335 

suTfer anxiety on my account, I resolved to push 
forward as rapidly as possible to the place of meeting. 
I went to look after the Hail-Storm, and having found 
him, I offered him a handful of haAvks'-bells and 
a paper of vermilion, on condition that he would 
guide me in the morning through the mountains. 

The Hail-Storm ejaculated, '''' HowV and accepted 
the gift. Nothing more was said on either side; 
the matter was settled, and I lay down to sleep in 
Kongra-Tonga's lodge. 

Long before daylight, Raymond shook me by the 
shoulder. 

"Everything is ready," he said. 

I went out. The morning was chill, damp, and 
dark; and the whole camp seemed asleep. The 
Hail-Storm sat on horseback before the lodge, and 
my mare Pauline and the mule which Raymond rode 
were picketed near it. We saddled and made our 
other arrangements for the journey, but before these 
were completed the camp began to stir, and the 
lodge -coverings fluttered and rustled as the squaw'S 
pulled them down in preparation for departure. Just 
as the light began to appear, we left the ground, 
passing up through a narrow opening among the 
rocks which led eastward out of the meadow. Gain- 
ing the top of this passage, I turned and sat looking 
back upon the camp, dindy visible in the gray light 
of morning. All was alive with the bustle of prepa- 
ration. I turned away, half unwilling to take a final 
leave of my savage associates. We passed among 



336 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

rocks and pine-trees so dark that for a while we 
could scarcely see our way. Tlie country in front 
was wild and broken, half hill, half plain, partly 
open and partly covered witli woods of pine and oak. 
Barriers of lofty mountains encompassed it; the 
woods were fresh and cool in the early morning, the 
peaks of the mountains were wreathed with mist, and 
sluggish vapors were entangled among the forests 
upon their sides. At length the black pinnacle of 
the tallest mountain was tipped with gold by the ris- 
ing sun. The Hail-Storm, who rode in front, gave a 
low exclamation. Some large animal leaped up from 
among the bushes, and an elk, as I thought, his horns 
thrown back over his neck, darted past us across 
the open space, and bounded like a mad thing away 
among the adjoining pines. Raymond was soon out 
of his saddle, but before he could fire, the animal 
was full two hundred yards distant. The ball struck 
its mark, though much too low for mortal effect. The 
elk, however, wheeled in his flight, and ran at full 
speed among the trees, nearly at right angles to his 
former course. I fired and broke his shoulder; still 
he moved on, limping down into a neighboring woody 
hollow, whither the young Indian followed and killed 
him. When we reached the spot, w^e discovered him 
to be no elk, but a black-tailed deer, an animal nearly 
twice as large as the common deer, and quite un- 
known in the east. The reports of the rifles had 
reached the ears of the Indians, and several of them 
came to the spot. Leaving the hide of the deer to 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUXTAINS. 337 

the Hail-Storm, we hung as much of the meat as 
we wanted behind our saddles, left the rest to the 
Indians, and resumed our journey. Meanwhile the 
village was on its way, and had gone so far that to 
get in advance of it was impossible. We directed 
our course so as to strike its line of march at the 
nearest point. In a short time, through the dark 
trunks of the pines, we could see the figures of the 
Indians as they passed. Once more we were among 
them. They were moving with even more than their 
usual precipitation, crowded together in a narrow 
pass between rocks and old pine-trees. We were on 
the eastern descent of the mountain, and soon came 
to a rough and difhcult defile, leading down a very- 
steep declivity. The whole swarm poured down 
together, fdling the rocky passage-way like some 
turbulent mountain-stream. The mountains before 
us were on fire, and had been so for weeks. The 
view in front was obscured by a vast dim sea of 
smoke, while on either hand rose the tall cliffs, bear- 
ing aloft their crests of pines, and the sharp pinnacles 
and broken ridges of the mountains beyond were 
faintly traceable as through a veil. The scc:ic in 
itself was grand and imposing, but with the savage 
multitude, the armed warriors, the naked children, 
the gayly apparelled girls, pouring impetuously down 
the heights, it would have formed a noble subject for 
a painter, and only the pen of a Scott could have 
done it justice in description. 

We passed over a burnt tract where the ground 

22 



338 THE OREGOX TRAIL. 

was hot beneath the horses' feet, and between the 
blazing sides of two mountains. Before long we had 
descended to a softer region, where we found a suc- 
cession of little valleys watered by a stream, along 
the borders of which grew abundance of wild goose- 
berries and currants, and the children and many of 
the men straggled from the lino of march to gather 
them as we passed along. Descending still farther, 
the view changed rapidly. The burning mountains 
were behind us, and through the open valleys in 
front we could see the prairie, stretching like an 
ocean beyond the sight. After passing through a 
line of trees that skirted the brook, the Indians filed 
out upon the plains. I was thirsty and knelt down 
by the little stream to drink. As I mounted again, 
I very carelessly left my rifle among the grass, and, 
my thoughts being otherwise absorbed, I rode for 
some distance before discovering its absence. I lost 
no time in turning about and galloping back in search 
of it. Passing the line of Indians, I watched every 
warrior as he rode by me at a canter, and at length 
discovered my rifle in the hands of one of them, who, 
on my approaching to claim it, immediately gave it 
up. Having no other means of acknowledging the 
obligation, I took off one of my spurs and gave it to 
him. He was greatly delighted, looking vipon it as 
a distinguished mark of favor, and immediately held 
out his foot for me to buckle it on. As soon as I had 
done so, he struck it with all his force into the side 
of his hoi-se, which gave a violent leap. The Indian 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 339 

laughed iiiid spurred harder than before. At this the 
horse sliot away hke an arrow, amid the screams and 
hiughter of the squaws, and the ejaculations of the 
men, who exclaimed, "Washtay! — Good!" at the 
potent effect of my gift. The Indian had no saddle, 
and nothing in place of a bridle except a leather 
string tied round the horse's jaw. The animal was 
of course wholly uncontrollable, and stretched away 
at full speed over the prairie, till he and his rider 
vanished behiiid a distant swell. I never saw the 
man again, but I presume no harm came to him. An 
Indian on horseback has more lives than a cat. 

The village encamped on the scorching prairie, 
close to the foot of the mountains. The heat was 
most intense and penetrating. Tlie coverings of the 
lodgings were raised a foot or more from the ground, 
in order to procure some circulation of air; and 
Reynal thought proper to lay aside his trapper's dress 
of buckskin and assume the very scanty costume of 
an Indian. Thus elegantly attired, he stretched him- 
self in his lodge on a buffalo-robe, alternately cursing 
the heat and puffing at the pipe which he and I passed 
between us. There was present also a select circle of 
Indian friends and relatives. A small boiled puppy 
was served up as a parting feast, to which was added, 
by way of dessert, a Avooden bowl of gooseberries 
from the mountains. 

"Look there," said Reynal, pointing out of the 
opening of his lodge ; " do you see that line of buttes 
about fifteen miles off? Well, now do you see that 



340 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

farthest one, with the white speck on the face of it? 
Do you think you ever saw it before?" 

"It looks to me," said I, "like the hill that we 
were 'camped under when we were on Laramie 
Creek, six or eight weeks ago." 

"You've hit it," answered Reynal. 

"Go and bring in the animals, Raymond," said I; 
"we '11 'camp there to-night, and start for the fort in 
the morning." 

The mare and the mule were soon before the lodge. 
We saddled them, and in the mean time a number of 
Indians collected about us. The virtues of Pauline, 
my strong, fleet, and hardy little mare, were well 
known in camp, and several of the visitors were 
mounted upon good horses which they had brought 
me as presents. I promptly declined their offers, 
since accepting them would have involved the neces- 
sity of transferring Pauline into their barbarous hands. 
We took leave of Reynal, but not of the Indians, 
Avho are accustomed to dispense with such superfluous 
ceremonies. Leaving the camp, we rode straight 
over the prairie towards the white-faced bluff, whose 
pale ridges swelled gently against the horizon, like a 
cloud. An Indian went witli us, whose name I for- 
get, though the ugliness of his face and the ghastly 
width of his mouth dwell vividly in my recollection. 
The antelope were numerous, but we did not heed 
them. We rode directly towards our destination, 
over the arid plains and barren hills; until, late in 
the afternoon, half spent with heat, thirst, and 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 341 

fatigue, we saw a gladdening sight: the long line of 
trees and the deep gulf that mark the course of 
Laramie Creek. Passing through the growth of 
huge dilapidated old cotton-wood trees that bordered 
the creek, we rode across to the other side. The 
rapid and foaming waters were filled v/itli fish playing 
and splashing in the shallows. As we gained the 
farther bank, our horses turned eagerly to drink, and 
we, kneeling on the sand, followed their example. 
We had not gone far before the scene began to grow 
familiar. 

"We are getting near home, Raymond," said I. 

There stood the big tree under which we had 
encamped so long; there were the white cliffs that 
used to look down upon our tent when it stood at the 
bend of the creek; there was the meadow in which 
our horses had grazed for weeks, and a little farther 
on, the prairie-dog village where I had beguiled 
many a languid hour in shooting the unfortunate 
inhabitants. 

"We are going to catch it now," said Raymond, 
turning his broad face up towards the sky. 

In truth, the cliffs and the meadow, the stream and 
the groves, were darkening fast. Black masses of 
cloud w^ere swelling up in the south, and the thunder 
was growling ominously. 

"We will 'camp there," I said, pointing to a dense 
grove of trees lower down the stream. Raymond 
and I turned towards it, but the Indian stopped and 
called earnestly after us. When we demanded what 



342 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

was tlie matter, he said that the ghosts of two war- 
riors were always among those trees, and that if we 
slept there, they would scream and throw stones at 
us all night, and perhaps steal our horses before 
morning. Thinking it as well to humor him, we 
left behind us the haunt of these extraordinary 
ghosts, and passed on towards Cliugwater, riding at 
full gallop, for the big drops began to patter down. 
Soon we came in sight of the poplar saplings that 
grew about the mouth of the little stream. We 
leaped to the ground, threw off our saddles, turned 
our horses loose, and drawing our knives began to 
slash among the bushes to cut twigs and branches for 
making a shelter against the rain. Bending down 
the taller saplings as they grew, we piled the young 
shoots upon them, and thus made a convenient pent- 
house ; but our labor was needless. The storm scarcely 
touched us. Half a mile on our right the rain was 
pouring down like a cataract, and the thunder roared 
over the prairie like a battery of cannon; while we 
by good fortune received only a few heavy drops from 
the skirt of the passing cloud. The weather cleared 
and the sun set gloriously. Sitting close under our 
leafy canopy, we proceeded to discuss a substantial 
meal of ivasna which Weah Washtay had given me. 
The Indian had brought with him his pipe and a bag 
of shongsasha ; so before lying down to sleep, we sat 
for some time smoking together. First, however, 
our wide-mouthed friend had taken the precaution of 
carefully examining the neighborhood. He reported 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 343 

that eight men, counting them on his fingers, had 
been encamped there not long before, — Bisonette, 
Paul Dorion, Antoine Le Rouge, Richardson, and 
four others, whose names he could not tell. All this 
proved strictly correct. By what instinct he had 
arrived at such accurate conclusions, I am utterly at 
a loss to divine. 

It was still quite dark when I awoke and called 
Raymond. The Indian was already gone, having 
chosen to go on before us to the fort. Setting out 
after him, we rode for some time in complete dark- 
ness, and when the sun at length rose, glowing like a 
fiery ball of copper, we were within ten miles of the 
fort. At length, from the summit of a sandy bluff, 
we could see Fort Laramie, miles before us, standing 
by the side of the stream like a little gray speck, in 
the midst of the boundless desolation. I stopped my 
horse, and sat for a moment looking down upon it. 
It seemed to me the very centre of comfort and civili- 
zation. We were not long in approaching it, for we 
rode at speed the greater part of the way. Laramie 
Creek still intervened between us and the friendly 
walls. Entering the water at the point where we 
had struck upon the bank, we raised our feet to the 
saddle behind us, and thus kneeling as it were on 
horseback, passed dry-shod through the swift current. 
As we rode up the bank, a number of men appeared 
in the gateway. Three of them came forward to 
meet us. In a moment I distinguished Shaw; Henry 
Chatillon followed, with his face of manly simplicity 



344 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and frankness, and Deslauriers came last, with a 
broad grin of welcome. The meeting was not on 
either side one of mere ceremony. For my own part, 
the change was a most agreeable one, from the society 
of savages and men little better than savages, to that 
of my gallant and high-minded companion, and our 
noble-hearted guide. My appearance was equally 
welcome to Shaw, who was beginning to entertain 
some very uncomfortable surmises concerning me. 

Bordeaux greeted me cordially, and shouted to the 
cook. This functionary was a new acquisition, hav- 
ing lately come from Fort Pierre with the trading 
Avagons. Whatever skill he might have boasted, he 
had not the most promising materials to exercise it 
upon. He set before me, however, a breakfast of 
biscuit, coffee, and salt pork. It seemed like a new 
phase of existence, to be seated once more on a bench, 
with a knife and fork, a plate and teacup, and some- 
thing resembling a table before me. The coffee 
seemed delicious, and the bread was a most ^^'elcome 
novelty, since for three weeks I had tasted scarcely 
anything but meat, and that for the most part with- 
out salt. The meal also had the relish of good com- 
pany, for opposite to me sat Shaw in elegant dishabille. 
If one is anxious thoroughly to appreciate the value 
of a congenial companion, he has only to spend a few 
weeks by himself in an Ogillallah village. And if 
he can contrive to add to his seclusion a debilitating: 
and somewhat critical illness, his perceptions upon 
this subject will be rendered considerably more vivid. 



li 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 345 

Shtiw had been two or three weeks at the fort. I 
found him established in his okl quarters, — a large 
apartment usually occupied by the absent bourgeois. 
In one corner was a soft pile of excellent buffalo- 
robes, and here 1 lay down. Sha^v■ brought me three 
books. 

"Here," said he, "is your Shakespeare and Byron, 
and here is the Old Testament, which has as much 
poetry in it as the other two put together." 

I chose the worst of the three, and for the greater 
part of that day I lay on the buffalo-robes, fairly 
revelling in the creations of that resjjlendent genius 
which has achieved no more signal triumph than that 
of half beguiling us to forget the unmanly character 
of its possessor. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE LONELY JOURNEY. 

On tlie clay of my arrival at Fort Laramie, Shaw 
and I were lounging on two buffalo-robes in the large 
apartment hospitably assigned to us ; Henry Chatillon 
also was present, busy about the harness and weapons, 
which had been brought into the room, and two or 
three Indians were crouching on the floor, eying us 
with their fixed, unwavering gaze. 

"I have been well off here," said Shaw, "in all 
respects but one ; there is no good shongsasha to be 
had for love or money." 

I gave him a small leather bag containing some of 
excellent quality, which I had brought from the 
Black Hills. "Now, Henry," said he, "hand me 
Papin's chopping-board, or give it to that Indian, 
and let him cut the mixture; they understand it 
better than any white man." 

The Indian, without saying a word, mixed the 
bark and the tobacco in due proportions, filled the 
pipe, and lighted it. This done, my companion and 
I proceeded to deliberate on our future course of 
proceeding ; first, however, Shaw acquainted me with 
some incidents which had occurred at the fort during 
my absence. 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 347 

About a week before, four men had arrived from 
beyond the mountains: Sublette, Roddick, and two 
others. Just before reaching tlie fort, tlicy had met 
a kirge party of Indians, cliiefly young men. All of 
them belonged to the village of our old friend Smoke, 
who, with his whole band of adherents, professed the 
greatest friendship for the whites. The travellers 
therefore approached and began to converse without 
the least suspicion. Suddenly, however, their bridles 
were seized, and they were ordered to dismount. 
Instead of complying, they lashed their horses, and 
broke away from the Indians. As they galloped off, 
they heard a j^ell behind them, with a burst of derisive 
laughter, and the reports of several guns. None of 
them were hurt, though Recldick's bridle-rein was 
cut by a bullet within an inch of his hand. After 
this taste of Indian manners, they felt for the moment 
no disposition to encounter farther risks. They 
intended to pursue the route southward along the 
foot of the mountains to Bent's Fort; and as our 
plans coincided with theirs, they proposed to join 
forces. Finding, however, that I did not return, 
they grew impatient of inaction, forgot their late 
danger, and set out without us, promising to wait our 
arrival at Bent's Fort. From thence we were to 
make the long journey to the settlements in com- 
pany, as the path was not a little dangerous, being 
infested by hostile Pawnees and Camanches. 

We expected, on reaching Bent's Fort, to find 
there still another reinforcement. A young Ken- 



348 THE orp:gon trail. 

tuckian hud come out to the mountains with Russel's 
party of California emigrants. One of his chief 
objects, as he gave out, was to kill an Indian: an 
exploit which he afterwards succeeded in achieving, 
much to the jeoj)ardy of ourselves, and others who 
had to pass through the country of the dead Pawnee's 
enraged relatives. Having become disgusted with 
his emigrant associates, he left them, and had some 
time before set out with a party of companions for 
the head of the Arkansas. He left us a letter, to 
say that he would wait until we arrived at Bent's 
Fort, and accompany us thence to the settlements. 
When, however, he came to the fort, he found there 
a party of forty men about to make the homeward 
journey, and wisely preferred to avail himself of so 
strong an escort. Sublette and his companions also 
joined this company; so that on reaching Bent's 
Fort, some six weeks after, we found ourselves 
deserted by our allies and thrown once more upon 
our own resources. 

On the fourth of August, early in the afternoon, 
we bade a final adieu to tlie hospitable gateway of 
Fort Laramie. Again Shaw and 1 were riding side 
by side on the prairie. For the first lifty miles we 
had companions witli us: TrochcS a trapper, and 
Kouville, a nondescript in the employ of the Fur 
Company, who were going to join the trader Bisonette 
at his encampment near the head of Horse Creek. 
We rode only six or eight miles tliat afternoon before 
we came to a little brook traversing the barren 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 349 

prairie. All along- its course grew copses of young 
wild-cherry trees, loaded with ripe fruit, and almost 
concealing the gliding thread of water with their 
dense growth. Here we encamped; and being too 
indolent to pitch our tent, we flung our saddles on 
tlie ground, spread a pair of buffalo-robes, lay down 
upon them, and began to smoke. Meanwhile Des- 
lauriers busied himself with his frying-pan, and 
Raymond stood guard over the band of grazing 
horses. Deslauriers had an active assistant in Rou- 
ville, who professed great skill in the culinary art, 
and, seizing upon a fork, began to lend his aid in 
cooking supper. Indeed, according to his own belief, 
Rouville was a man of universal knowledge, and he 
lost no oj)portunity to display his manifold accom- 
plishments. He had been a circus-rider at St. Louis, 
and once he rode round Fort Laramie on his head, to 
the utter bewilderment of the Indians. He was also 
noted as the wit of the fort; and as he had consider- 
able humor and abundant vivacity, he contributed 
more that night to the liveliness of the camp than all 
the rest of the party put together. At one instant he 
would kneel by Deslauriers, instructing him in the 
true method of frying antelope-steaks, then he would 
come and seat himself at our side, dilating upon the 
correct fashion of braiding up a horse's tail, telling 
apocryphal stories how he had killed a buffalo bull 
with a knife, having first cut off his tail when at full 
speed, or relating whimsical anecdotes of the lourgcois 
Papin. At last he snatched up a volume of Shake- 



350 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

speare that was lying on the grass, and halted and 
stumbled through a line or two to prove that he could 
read. He went gambolling about the camp, chattering 
like some frolicsome ape ; and whatever he was doing 
at one moment, the presumption was a sure one that 
he would not be doing it the next. His companion 
Trochd sat silently on the grass, not speaking a word, 
but keeping a vigilant eye on a very ugly little Utah 
squaw, of whom he was extremely jealous. 

On the next day we travelled farther, crossing the 
wide sterile basin called "Goch^'s Hole," Towards 
night we became involved among ravines ; and being 
unaljle to find water, our journey was protracted to 
a very late hour. On the next morning we had to 
pass a long line of bluffs, whose raw sides, wrought 
upon by rains and storms, were of a ghastly white- 
ness most oppressive to the sight. As we ascended 
a gap in these hills, the way was marked by huge 
footprints, like those of a human giant. They were 
the tracks of the grizzly bear, of which we had also 
seen abundance on the day before. Immediately 
after this we were crossing a barren plain, spreading 
in long and gentle undulations to the horizon. 
Though the sun was bright, there was a light haze 
in the atmosphere. The distant hills assumed strange, 
distorted forms in the mirage, and the edge of the 
horizon was continually changing its aspect. Shaw 
and I were riding together, and Henry Chatillon 
was a few rods before us, when he stoj)ped his horse 
suddenly, and turning round with the peculiar earnest 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 351 

expression wliicli lie always wore when excited, called 
us to come forward. We galloped to liis side. Henry 
pointed towards a black speck on the gray swell of 
the prairie, apparently about a mile off. "It must 
be a bear," said he; "come, now we shall all have 
some sport. Better fun to fight him than to fight an 
old buffalo bull; grizzly bear so strong and smart." 

So we all galloped forward together, prepared for 
a hard fight; for these bears, though clumsy in 
appearance, are incredibly fierce and active. The 
swell of the prairie concealed the black object from 
our view. Immediately after it appeared again. But 
now it seemed very near to us; and as we looked at 
it in astonishment, it suddenly separated into two 
parts, each of which took wing and flew away. We 
stopped our horses and looked at Henry, whose face 
exhibited a curious mixture of mirth and mortifi- 
cation. His eye had been so completely deceived 
by the peculiar atmosphere that he had mistaken 
two large crows at the distance of fifty rods for 
a grizzly bear a mile off. To the journey's end 
Henry never heard the last of the grizzly bear with 
wings. 

In the afternoon we came to the foot of a consider- 
able hill. As we ascended it, Rouville began to ask 
questions concerning our condition and prospects at 
home, and Shaw was edifying him with an account 
of an imaginary wife and child, to which he listened 
with implicit faith. Reaching the top of the hill, we 
saw the windings of Horse Creek on the plains below 



352 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

us, and a little on the left we could distinguish the 
camp of Bisonette among the trees and copses along 
the course of the stream. Rouville's face assumed 
just then a ludicrously blank expression. We in- 
quired what was the matter ; when it appeared that 
Bisonette had sent him from this place to Fort 
Laramie with the sole object of bringing back a 
supply of tobacco. Our rattlebrain friend, from the 
time of his reaching the fort up to the present 
moment, had entirely forgotten the object of his jour- 
ney, and had ridden a dangerous hundred miles for 
nothing. Descending to Horse Creek, we forded it, 
and on the opposite bank a solitary Indian sat on 
horseback under a tree. He said nothing, but turned 
and led the way towards the camp. Bisonette had 
made choice of an admirable position. The stream, 
with its thick growth of trees, enclosed on three sides 
a wide green meadow, where about forty Dahcotah 
lodges were pitched in a circle, and beyond them a 
few lodges of the friendly Shiennes. Bisonette him- 
self lived in the Indian manner. Riding up to his 
lodge, we found him seated at the head of it, sur- 
rounded by various appliances of comfort not connnon 
on the prairie. His squaw was near him, and rosy 
children were scrambling about in printed calico 
gowns ; Paul Dorion, also, with his leathery face and 
old white capote, was seated in the lodge, together 
with Antoine Le Rouge, a half-breed Pawnee, Sibille, 
a trader, and several other white men. 

"It will do you no harm," said Bisonette, "to 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 353 

stay here with us for a day or two, before you start 
for the Pueblo." 

We accepted the invitation, and pitched our tent 
on a rising ground above the camp and close to the 
trees. Bisonette soon invited us to a feast, and we 
suffered abundance of the same sort of attention from 
his Indian associates. The reader may possibly recol- 
lect that when I joined the Indian village, beyond 
the Black Hills, I found that a few families were 
absent, having declined to pass the mountains along 
with the rest. The Indians in Bisonette's camp con- 
sisted of these very families, and many of them came 
to me that evening to inquire after their relatives 
and friends. They were not a little mortified to 
learn that while they, from their own timidity and 
indolence, Avere almost in a starving condition, the 
rest of the village had provided their lodges for the 
next season, laid in a great stock of provisions, and 
were living in abundance. Bisonette's companions 
had been sustaining themselves for some time on 
wild cherries, which the squaws pounded, stones 
and all, and spread on buffalo-robes to dry in the 
sun; they were then eaten without farther prepara- 
tion, or used as an ingredient in various delectable 
compounds. 

On the next day, the camp was in commotion with 

a new arrival. A single Indian had come with his 

family from the Arkansas. As he passed among the 

lodges, he put on an expression of unusual dignity 

and importance, and gave out that he had brought 

23 



354 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

great news to tell the whites. Soon after the squaws 
had pitched his lodge, he sent his little son to invite 
all the white men and all the more distinguished 
Indians to a feast. The guests arrived and sat 
wedged together, shoulder to shoulder, within the 
hot and suffocating lodge. The Stabber, for that 
was our entertainer's name, had killed an old buffalo 
bull on his way. This veteran's boiled tripe, tougher 
than leather, formed the main item of the repast. 
For the rest, it consisted of wild cherries and grease 
boiled together in a large copper kettle. The feast 
was distributed, and for a moment all was silent, 
strenuous exertion ; then each guest, though with one 
or two exceptions, turned his wooden dish bottom 
upwards to prove that he had done full justice to his 
entertainer's hospitality. The Stabber next produced 
his chopping-board, on which he prepared the mix- 
ture for smoking, and filled several pipes, which cir- 
culated among the companj'. This done, he seated 
himself upright on his couch, and began with much 
gesticulation to tell his story. I will not repeat his 
childish jargon. It was so entangled, like the 
greater part of an Indian's stories, with absurd and 
contradictory details, that it was almost impossible 
to disengage from it a single particle of truth. All 
that we could gather was the following : — 

He had been on the Arkansas, and there he had 
seen six great war-parties of whites. He had never 
believed before that the whole world contained half 
so many white men. They all had large horses, long 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 355 

knives, and short rifles, and some of them were 
dressed alike in the most splendid war-dresses he 
had ever seen. From this account it was clear that 
bodies of dragoons and perhaps also of volunteer 
cavalry had passed up the Arkansas. The Stabber 
had also seen a great many of the white lodges of 
the Meneaska, drawn by their long-horned buffalo. 
These could be nothing else than covered ox-wagons, 
used, no doubt, in transporting stores for the troops. 
Soon after seeing this, our host had met an Indian 
who had lately come from among the Camanches, 
who had told him that all the Mexicans had gone 
out to a great buffalo hunt ; that the Americans had 
hid themselves in a ravine; and that when the 
Mexicans had shot away all their arrows, the Ameri- 
cans fired their guns, raised their war-whoop, rushed 
out, and killed them all. We could only infer from 
this, that war had been declared with Mexico, and a 
battle fought in which the Americans were victo- 
rious. When, some weeks after, we arrived at the 
Pueblo, we heard of General Kearney's march up 
the Arkansas, and of General Taylor's victories at 
Matamoras. 

As the sun was setting that evening a crowd gath- 
ered on the plain by the side of our tent, to try the 
speed of their horses. These were of every shape, 
size, and color. Some came from California, some 
from the States, some from among the mountains, 
and some from the wild bands of the prairie. They 
were of every hue, white, black, red, and gray, or 



356 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

mottled and clouded with a strange variety of colors. 
They all had a wild and startled look, very differ- 
ent from the sober aspect of a well-bred city steed. 
Those most noted for swiftness and spirit were deco- 
rated with eagle feathers dangling from their manes 
and tails. Fifty or sixty Dahcotah were present, 
wrapped from head to foot in their heavy robes of 
whitened hide. There were also a considerable 
number of the Shiennes, many of v/hom wore gaudy 
Mexican ponchos, swathed around their shoulders, 
but leaving the right arm bare. Mingled among the 
crowd of Indians was a number of Canadians, chiefly 
in the employ of Bisonette, — men v/hose home is the 
wilderness, and who love the camp-fire better than 
the domestic hearth. They are contented and happy 
in the midst of hardship, privation, and danger. 
Their cheerfulness and gayety is irrepressible, and 
no people on earth understand better how "to daff 
the world aside and bid it pass." Besides these, 
were two or three half-breeds, a race of rather extra- 
ordinary composition, being according to the common 
saying half Indian, half white man, and half devil. 
Antoine Le Rouge was the most conspicuous among 
them, with his' loose trousers and fluttering calico 
shirt. A handkerchief was bound round his head to 
confine his black snaky hair, and his small eyes 
twinkled beneath it with a mischievous lustre. He 
had a fine cream-colored horse, whose speed he must 
needs try along with the rest. So he threw off the 
rude high-peaked saddle, and substituting a piece of 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 357 

buff alo- robe, leaped liglitly into his seat. The space 
was cleared, the Avord was given, and he and his 
Indian rival darted out like lightning from among 
the crowd, each stretching forward over his horse's 
neck and plying his heavy Indian whip with might 
and main. A moment, and both were lost in the 
gloom; but Antoine soon came riding back victori- 
ous, exultingly patting the neck of his quivering and 
panting horse. 

About midnight, as I lay asleep, wrapped in a 
buffalo-robe on the ground ])y the side of our cart, 
Raymond came and woke me. Something, he said, 
was going forward which I would like to see. Look- 
ing down into the camp, I saw on the farther side of 
it a great number of Indians gathered about a fire, 
the bright glare of which made them visible through 
the thick darkness ; while from the midst proceeded 
a loud, measured chant which would have killed 
Paganini outright, broken occasionally by a burst of 
sharp yells. I gathered the robe around me, for the 
night was cold, and walked down to the spot. The 
dark throng of Indians was so dense that they almost 
intercepted the light of the flame. As I was pushing 
among them with little ceremony, a chief interposed 
himself, and I was given to understand that a white 
man must not approach the scene of their solemnities 
too closely. By passing round to the other side 
where there was a little opening in the crowd, I 
could see clearly what was going forward, without 
intruding my unhallowed presence into the inner 



358 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

circle. The society of the " Strong Hearts " were 
engaged in one of their dances. The "Strong 
Hearts " are a warlike association, comprising men of 
both the Dahcotah and Shienne nations, and entirely 
composed, or supposed to be so, of young braves of 
the highest mettle. Its fundamental principle is the 
admirable one of never retreating from any enterprise 
once begun. All these Indian associations have a 
tutelary spirit. That of the Strong Hearts is em- 
bodied in the fox, an animal which white men would 
hardly have selected for a similar purpose, though 
his subtle character agrees well enough with an 
Indian's notions of what is honorable in warfare. 
The dancers were circling round and round the fire, 
each figure brightly illumined at one moment by the 
yellow light, and at the next drawn in blackest 
shadow as it passed between the flame and the spec- 
tator. They would imitate with the most ludicrous 
exactness the motions and voice of their sly patron 
the fox. Then a startling yell would be given. 
Many other warriors would leap into the ring, and 
with faces upturned towards the starless sky, they 
would all stamp, and whoop, and brandish their 
weapons like so many frantic devils. 

We remained here till the next afternoon. Mj 
companion and I with our three attendants then set 
out for the Pueblo, a distance of three hundred miles, 
and we supposed the journey would occupy about a 
fortnight. During this time we all hoped that we 
might not meet a single human being, for should we 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 359 

encounter any, they would in all probability be ene- 
mies, in whose eyes our rifles would be our only 
passports. For the first two days nothing worth 
mentioning took place. On the third morning, how- 
ever, an untoward incident occurred. We were 
encamped by the side of a little brook in an extensive 
hollow of the plain. Deslauriers was up long before 
daylight, and before he began to prepare breakfast he 
turned loose all the horses, as in duty bound. There 
was a cold mist clinging close to the ground, and by 
the time the rest of us were awake the animals were 
invisible. It was only after a long and anxious 
search that we could discover by their tracks the 
direction they had taken. They had all set off for 
Fort Laramie, following the guidance of a mutinous 
old mule, and though many of them were hobbled, 
they travelled three miles before they could be over- 
taken and driven back. 

For two or three days, we were passing over an 
arid desert. The only vegetation was a few tufts 
of short grass, dried and shrivelled by the heat. 
There was abundance of strange insects and reptiles. 
Huge crickets, black and bottle green, and wingless 
grasshoppers of the most extravagant dimensions, 
were tumbling about our horses' feet, and lizards 
without number darting like lightning among the 
tufts of grass. The most curious animal, however, 
was that commonly called the horned-frog. I caught 
one of them and consigned him to the care of 
Deslauriers, who tied him up in a moccason. About 



3G0 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

a niontli after tlii.s, I examined tlie prisoner's condi- 
tion, and finding him still lively and active, I pro- 
vided liim with a cage of Luffalo-hide, which was 
hung lip in the cart. In this manner he arrived 
safely at the settlements. From thence he travelled 
the whole way to Boston, packed closely in a trunk, 
heing regaled with fresh air regularly every night. 
When he reached his destination he was deposited 
under a glass case, where he sat for some months in 
great tranquillity, alternately dilating and contract- 
ing his white throat to the admiration of his visitors. 
At length, one morning about the middle of winter, 
he gave wp the ghost, and he now occupies a bottle 
of alcohol in the Agassiz Museum. His death was 
attributed to starvation, a very probable conclusion, 
since for six months he had taken no food whatever, 
though the sympathy of his juvenile admirers had 
tempted his palate with a great variety of delicacies. 
We found also animals of a somewhat larger growth. 
The number of prairie-dogs was astounding. Fre- 
quently the hard and dry plain was thickly covered, 
for miles together, with the little mounds which they 
make at the mouth of their burrows, and small 
squeaking voices yelped at us, as we passed along. 
The noses of the inhabitants were just visible at the 
mouth of their holes, but no sooner was their curiosity 
satisfied than they would instantly vanish. Some of 
the bolder dogs — though in fact they are no dogs at 
all, but little marmots rather smaller than a rabbit — ■ 
would sit yelping at us on the top of their mounds, 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 361 

jerking their tails emphatically with every shrill cr}' 
they uttered. As the danger drew nearer they would 
wheel about, toss their heels into the air, and dive in 
a twinkling into their burrows. Towards sunset, and 
especially if rain vv-as threatening, the whole com- 
munity made their appearance above ground. We 
saw them gathered in large knots around the burrow 
of some favorite citizen. There they would all sit 
erect, their tails spread out on the ground, and their 
paws hanging down before their white breasts, chat- 
tering and squeaking with the utmost vivacity upon 
some topic of common interest, while the proprietor 
of the burrow sat on the top of his mound, looking 
down with a complacent countenance on the enjoy- 
ment of his guests. Meanwhile, others ran about 
from burrow to burrow, as if on some errand of the 
last importance to their subterranean commonwealth. 
The snakes are apparently the prairie-dog's worst 
enemies; at least I think too well of the latter to 
suppose that they associate on friendly terms with 
these slimy intruders, which may be seen at all times 
basking among their holes, into which they always 
retreat when disturbed. Small owls, with wise and 
grave countenances, also make their abode with the 
prairie-dogs, though on what terms they live together 
I could never ascertain. 

On the fifth day after leaving Bisonette's camp, 
we saw, late in the afternoon, what w'e supposed to 
be a considerable stream, but on approaching it, we 
found to our mortification nothing but a dry bed of 



362 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

sand, into which the water had sunk and disappeared. 
We separated, some riding in one direction and some 
in another, along its course. Still we found no 
traces of water, not even so much as a wet spot in the 
sand. The old cotton-wood trees that grew along 
the bank, lamentably abused by lightning and tempest, 
were withering with the drought, and on the dead 
limbs, at the summit of the tallest, half a dozen 
crows were hoarsely carving, like birds of evil omen. 
We had no alternative but to keep on. There was 
no water nearer than the South Fork of the Platte, 
about ten miles distant. We moved forward, angry 
and silent, over a desert as flat as the outspread 
ocean. 

The sky had been obscured since the morning by 
thin mists and vapors, but now vast piles of clouds 
were gathered together in the west. They rose to a 
great height above the horizon, and looking up at 
them I distinguished one mass darker than the rest, 
and of a peculiar conical form. I happened to look 
again, and still could see it as before. At some 
moments it was dimly visible, at others its outline 
was sharp and distinct; but while the clouds around 
it were shifting, changing, and dissolving away, it 
still towered aloft in the midst of them, fixed and 
immovable. It must, thought I, be the summit of a 
mountain; and yet its height staggered me. My 
conclusion was right, however. It was Long's Peak, 
once believed to be one of the highest of the Rocky 
Mountain chain, though more recent discoveries have 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 363 

proved the contrary. Tlie thickening gloom soon 
hid it from view, and Ave never saw it again, for on 
the folk) wing day, and for some time after, the air 
was so full of mist that the view of distant objects 
was entirely cut off- 
It grew very late. Turning from our direct course, 
we made for the river at its nearest point, though in 
the utter darkness it was not easy to direct our way 
with much precision. Raymond rode on one side 
and Henry on the other. We heard each of them 
shouting that he had come upon a deep ravine. We 
steered at random between Scylla and Charybdis, 
and soon after became, as it seemed, inextricably 
involved with deep chasms all around us, while the 
darkness was such that we could not see a rod in 
any direction. We partially extricated ourselves by 
scrambling, cart and all, through a shallow ravine. 
We came next to a steep descent, down which we 
plunged without well knowing what was at the bot- 
tom. There was a great cracking of sticks and dry 
twigs. Over our heads were certain large shadowy 
objects ; and in front something like the faint gleam- 
ing of a dark sheet of water. Raymond ran his horse 
against a tree; Henry alighted, and, feeling on the 
ground, declared that there was grass enough for the 
horses. Before taking off his saddle, each man led 
his own horses down to the water in the best way he 
could. Then picketing two or three of the evil-dis- 
posed, we turned the rest loose, and lay down among 
the dry sticks to sleep. In the morning wc found 



364 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ourselves close to the South Fork of the Platte, on a 
spot surrounded by hushes and rank grass. Com- 
pensating ourselves with a hearty breakfast for the 
ill-fare of the previous night, we set forward again 
on our journey. When only two or three rods from 
the camp, I saw Shaw stop his mule, level his gun, 
and fire at some object in the grass. Deslauriers 
next jumped forward, and began to dance about, 
belaboring the unseen enemy with a whip. Then he 
stooped down, and drew out of the grass by the neck 
an enormous rattlesnake, with his head completely 
shattered by Shaw's bullet. As Deslauriers held 
him out at arm's length with an exulting grin, his 
tail, which still kept slowly writhing about, almost 
touched the ground ; and his body in the largest part 
was as thick as a stout man's arm. He had fourteen 
rattles, but the end of his tail was blunted, as if he 
could once have boasted of many more. From this 
time till we reached the Pueblo, we killed at least 
four or five of these snakes every day, as they lay 
coiled and rattling on the hot sand. Shaw was the 
St. Patrick of the party, and whenever he killed a 
snake he pulled off his tail and stored it away in his 
bullet-pouch, which was soon crammed with an edify- 
ing collection of rattles, great and small. Deslauriers 
with his whip also came in for a share of praise. A 
day or two after this, he triumphantly produced a 
small snake about a span and a half long, with one 
infant rattle at the end of his tail. 

We forded the South Fork of the Platte. On its 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 365 

farther bank were the traces of a very large camp of 
Arapahoes. The ashes of some three hundred fires 
were visible among the scattered trees, together with 
the remains of sweating lodges, and all the other 
appurtenances of a permanent camp. The place, 
however, had been for some months deserted. A 
few miles farther on we found more recent signs of 
Indians ; the trail of two or three lodges, which had 
evidently j^assed the day before ; every footprint was 
perfectly distinct in the dry, dusty soil. We noticed 
in particular the track of one moccason, upon the 
sole of which its economical proprietor had placed a 
large patch. These signs gave us but little uneasi- 
ness, as the number of the warriors scarcely exceeded 
that of our own party. At noon we rested under the 
walls of a large fort, built in these solitudes some 
years since by M. St. Vrain. It was now abandoned 
and fast falling into ruin. The walls of unbaked 
bricks were cracked from top to bottom. Our horses 
recoiled in terror from the neglected entrance, where 
the heavy gates were torn from their hinges and flung 
down. The area within was overgrown with weeds, 
and the long ranges of apartments once occupied 
by the motley concourse of traders, Canadians, and 
squaws, were now miserably dilapidated. Twelve 
miles farther on, near the spot where we encamped, 
were the remains of another fort, standing in melan- 
choly desertion and neglect. 

Early on the following morning we made a start- 
ling discovery. We passed close by a large deserted 



366 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

encampment of Arapahoes. There were about fifty 
fires still smouldering on the ground, and it was 
evident from numerous signs that the Indians must 
have left the place Avithin two hours of our reaching 
it. Their trail crossed our own, at right angles, and 
led in the direction of a line of hills, half a mile on 
our left. There were women and children in the 
party, which would have greatly diminished the 
danger of encountering them. Henry Chatillon 
examined the encampment and the trail with a very 
professional and business-like air. 

"Supposing we had met them, Henry?" said I. 

"Why," said he, "we hold out our hands to them, 
and give them all we 've got; they take away every- 
thing, and then I believe they no kill us. Perhaps," 
added he, looking up Avith a quiet, unchanged face, 
" perhaps we no let them rob us. Maybe before they 
come near, we have a chance to get into a ravine, or 
under the bank of the river; then, you know, we 
fight them." 

About noon on that day we reached Cherry Creek. 
Here was a great abundance of wild cherries, plums, 
gooseberries, and currants. The stream, however, 
like most of the others which we passed, was dried 
up with the heat, and we had to dig holes in the 
sand to find water for ourselves and our horses. Two 
days after, we left the banks of the creek, which we 
had been following for some time, and began to cross 
the high dividing ridge which separates the waters 
of the Platte from those of the Arkansas. The 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 367 

scenery was altogetlier changed. In place of the 
burning plains, we passed through rough and savage 
glens, and among hills crowned with a dreary growth 
of pines. We encamped among these solitudes on 
the night of the sixteenth of August. A tempest 
was threatening. The sun went down among volumeL 
of jet-black cloud, edged with a bloody red. But in 
spite of these portentous signs, we neglected to put 
up the tent, and, being extremely fatigued, lay down 
on the ground and fell asleep. The storm broke 
about midnight, and we pitched the tent amid dark- 
ness and confusion. In the morning all was fair 
again, and Pike's Peak, white with snow, was tower- 
ing above the wilderness afar off. 

We pushed through an extensive tract of pine 
woods. Large black-squirrels were leaping among 
the branches. From the farther edge of this forest 
we saw the prairie again, hollowed out before us into 
a vast basin, and about a mile in front we could dis- 
cern a little black speck moving upon its surface. It 
could be nothing but a buffalo. Henry primed his 
rifle afresh and galloped forward. To the left of the 
animal was a low rock}^ mound, of which Henry 
availed himself in making his approach. After a 
short time we heard the faint report of the rifle. The 
bull, mortally wounded from a distance of nearly 
three hundred yards, ran wildly round and round 
in a circle. Shaw and I then galloped forward, and 
passing him as he ran, foaming with rage and pain, 
discharged our pistols into his side. Once or twice 



368 THE ORECxON TRAIL. 

he rushed furiously upon us, but his strength was 
rapidly exhausted. Down he fell on his knees. For 
one instant he glared up at his enemies, with burning 
eyes, through his black tangled mane, and then rolled 
over on his side. Though gaunt and thin, he was 
larger and heavier than the largest ox. Foam and 
blood flowed together from his nostrils as he lay bel- 
lowing and pawing the ground, tearing up grass and 
earth with his hoofs. His sides rose and fell like a 
vast pair of bellows, the blood spouting up in jets 
from the bullet-holes. Suddenly his glaring eyes 
became like a lifeless jelly. He lay motionless on 
the ground. Henry stooped over him, and, making 
an incision with his knife, pronounced the meat too 
rank and tough for use ; so, disappointed in our hopes 
of an addition to our stock of provisions, we rode 
away and left the carcass to the wolves. 

In the afternoon we saw the mountains rising like 
a gigantic wall at no great distance on our right. 
" Des sauvages ! dcs sauvages ! " exclaimed Deslauriers, 
looking round with a frightened face, and pointing 
with his whip towards the foot of the mountains. In 
fact, we could see at a distance a number of little 
black specks, like horsemen in rapid motion. Henry 
Chatillon, with Shaw and myself, galloped towards 
them to reconnoitre, when to our amusement we saw 
the supposed Arapahoes resolved into the black tops 
of some pine-trees which grew along a ravine. The 
summits of these pines, just visible above the verge 
of the prairie, and seeming to move as we our- 



TFIE LONELY JOURNF.Y. 869 

selves were advancing, looked exactly like a line of 
horsemen. 

We encamped among ravines and hollows, through 
which a little brook was foaming angrily. Before 
sunrise in the morning the snow-covered mountains 
v/ere beautifully tinged with a delicate rose-color. 
A noble spectacle awaited us as we moved forv/ard. 
Six or eight miles on our right, Pike's Peak and his 
giant brethren rose out of the level prairie, as if 
springing from the bed of the ocean. From their 
summits down to the plain below they were involved 
in a mantle of clouds, in restless motion, as if urged 
by strong winds. For one instant some snowy peak, 
towering in awful solitude, would be disclosed to 
view. As the clouds broke along the mountain, we 
could see the dreary forests, the tremendous preci- 
pices, the white patches of snow, the gulfs and 
chasms as black as night, all revealed for an instant, 
and then disappearing from the view. 

On the day after, we had left the mountains at 
some distance. A black cloud descended upon them, 
and a tremendous explosion of thunder followed, 
reverberating among the precipices. In a few 
moments everything grew black, and the rain poured 
down like a cataract. We got under an old cotton- 
wood tree, which stood by the side of a stream, and 
waited there till the rage of the toiTcnt luul passed. 

The clouds opened at the point Vvhere they first 
had gathered, and the whole sublime congregation of 
mountains was bathed at once in warm sunshine. 

24 



370 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

They seemed more like some vision of eastern romance 
than like a reality of that wilderness; all were melted 
together into a soft delicious blue, as voluptuous as 
the sky of Naples or the transparent sea that washes 
the sunny cliffs of Capri. On the left the sky was 
still of an inky blackness ; but two concentric rain- 
bows stood in bright relief against it, while far in 
front the ragged clouds still streamed before the 
wind, and the retreating thunder muttered angrily. 
Through that afternoon and the next morning we 
were passing down the banks of the stream, called 
"Boiling Spring Creek," from the boiling spring 
whose waters flow into it. When we stojDped at 
noon, we were within six or eight miles of the 
Pueblo. Setting out again, we found by the fresh 
tracks that a horseman had just been out to recon- 
noitre us; he had circled half round the camp, and 
then galloped back at full speed for the Pueblo. 
What made him so shy of us we could not conceive. 
After an hour's ride we reached the edge of a hill, 
from which a welcome sight greeted us. The 
Arkansas ran along the valley below, among woods 
and groves, and closely nestled in the midst of wide 
corn-fields and green meadows, where cattle were 
grazing, rose the low mud walls of the Pueblo. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT. 

We fipproached the gate of the Pueblo. It was a 
wretched species of fort, of most primitive construc- 
tion, being nothing more than a large square enclosure, 
surrounded by a wall of mud, miserably cracked and 
dilapidated. The slender pickets that surmounted it 
were half broken down, and the gate dangled on its 
wooden hinges so loosely that to open or shut it 
seemed likely to fling it down altogether. Two or 
three squalid Mexicans, with their broad hats, and 
their vile faces overgrown with hair, were lounging 
about the bank of the river in front of it. They 
disappeared as they saw us approach ; and as we rode 
up to the gate, a light active little figure came out to 
meet us. It was our old friend Richard. He had 
come from Fort Laramie on a trading expedition to 
Taos ; but finding when he reached the Pueblo that 
the war woidd prevent his going farther, he was 
quietly waiting till the conquest of the countr}' 
should allow him to proceed. He seemed to feel 
bound to do the honors of the place. Shaking us 
warmly by the hand, he led the way into the area. 

Here we saw his large Santa Fd wagons standing 
together. A few squaws and Spanish women, and a 



872 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

few Mexicans, as mean and miserable as the place 
itself, were lazily sauntering aljout. Richard con- 
ducted us to the state apartment of the Pueblo, a 
small mud room, very Jieatly finished, considering the 
material, and garnished with a crucifix, a looking- 
glass, a picture of the Virgin, and a rusty horse- 
pistol. There were no chairs, but instead of them a 
number of chests and boxes ranged about the room. 
There was another room beyond, less sumptuously 
decorated, and here three or four Spanish girls, one 
of them very pretty, were baking cakes at a mud fire- 
place in the corner. They brought out a poncho, 
which they spread upon the floor by way of table- 
cloth. A supper, which seemed to us luxurious, was 
soon laid out upon it, and folded buffalo-robes were 
placed around it to receive the guests. Two or three 
Americans besides ourselves were present. We sat 
down in Turkish fashion, and began to ask the news. 
Richard told us that, about three weeks before, 
General Kearney's army had left Bent's Fort to 
march against Santa Fe ; that when last heard from 
they were approaching the defiles that led to the city. 
One of the Americans produced a dingy newspaper, 
containing an account of the battles of Palo Alto and 
Resaca de la Palma. While we were discussing these 
matters, the doorway was darkened by a tall, sham- 
bling fellow, who stood with his hands in his pockets 
taking a leisurely survey of the premises before he 
entered. He wore brown homespun trousers, much 
too short for his legs, and a pistol and bowie-laiife 



THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT. 373 

stuck in his belt. His head and one eye were envel- 
oped in a huge banddge of linen. Having completed 
his observations, he came slouching in, and sat down 
on a chest. Eight or ten more of the same stamp 
followed, and very coolly arranging themselves about 
the room, began to stare at the company. We were 
forcibly reminded of the Oregon emigrants, though 
these unwelcome visitors had a certain glitter of 
the eye, and a compression of the lips, which distin- 
guished them from our old acquaintances of the 
prairie. They began to catechise us at once, inquir- 
ing whence we had come, what we meant to do next, 
and what were our prospects in life. 

The man with the bandaged head had met with 
an untoward accident a few days before. He was 
going down to the river to bring water, and was 
pushing through the young willows which covered 
the low ground when he came unawares upon a 
grizzly bear, which, having just eaten a buffalo bull, 
had lain down to sleep off the meal. The bear rose 
on his hind legs, and gave the intruder such a blow 
with his paw that he laid his forehead entirely bare, 
clawed off the front of his scalp, and narrowly missed 
one of his eyes. Fortunately he was not in a very 
pugnacious mood, being surfeited with his late meal. 
The man's companions, who were close behind, raised 
a shout, and the bear walked away, crushing down 
the willows in his leisurely retreat. 

These men belonged to a party of Mormons, who, 
out of a well-grounded fear of the other emigrants, 



374 THE OREGOX TRAIL. 

had postponed leaving the settlements until all the 
rest were gone. On account of this delay, they cUd 
not reach Fort Laramie until it was too late to con- 
tinue their journey to California. Hearing that there 
was good land at the head of the Arkansas, they 
crossed over under the guidance of Richard, and 
were now preparing to spend the winter at a spot 
about half a mile from the Pueblo. 

When we took leave of Richard it Avas near sun- 
set. Passing out of the gate, we could look down 
the little valley of the Arkansas ; a beautiful scene, 
and doubly so to our eyes, so long accustomed to 
deserts and mountains. Tall woods lined the river, 
with green meadows on either hand; and high bluffs, 
quietly basking in the sunlight, flanked the narrow 
valley. A Mexican on horseback was driving a herd 
of cattle towards the gate, and our little white tent, 
which the men had pitched under a tree in the 
meadow, made a pleasing feature in the scene. 
When we reached it, we found that Richard had sent 
a Mexican to bring us an abundant supply of green 
corn and vegetables, and invite us to help ourselves 
to whatever we wanted from the fields around the 
Pueblo. 

The inhabitants were in daily apprehension of an 
inroad from more formidable consumers than we. 
Every year, at the time when the corn begins to 
ripen, the Arapahoes, to the number of several thou- 
sands, come and encamp around the Pueblo. The 
handful of white men, who are entirely at the mercy 



THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT. 375 

of this swarm of barbarians, choose to make a merit 
of necessity ; they come forward very cordially, shake 
them by the hand, and tell them that the harvest is 
entirely at their disposal. The Arapahoes take them 
at their word, lielp themselves most liberall}', and 
usually turn their horses into the corn-fields after- 
wards. They have the foresight, however, to leave 
enough of the crops untouched to serve as an induce- 
ment for planting the fields again for their benefit 
in the next spring. 

The human race in this part of the world is sepa- 
rated into three divisions, arranged in the order of 
their merits : white men, Indians, and Mexicans ; to 
the latter of whom the honorable title of '' whites " is 
by no means conceded. 

In spite of the warm sunset of that evening the 
next morning was a dreary and cheerless one. It 
rained steadily, clouds resting upon the very tree- 
tops. We crossed the river to visit the JMormon 
settlement. As we passed through the water, several 
trappers on horseback entered it from the other side. 
Their buckskin frocks were soaked through by the 
rain, and clung fast to their limbs with a most 
clammy and uncomfortable look. The water was 
trickling down their faces, and dropping from the 
ends of their rifles and from the traps which each 
carried at the pommel of his saddle. Horses and all, 
they had a disconsolate and woe-begone appearance, 
which we could not help laughing at, forgetting how 
often we ourselves had been in a similar plight. 



S7G THE OREGON TRAIL. 

After half an hour's riding, we saw the white 
wagons of the j\Iormons drawn up among the trees. 
Axes were sounding, trees falhng, and log-huts ris- 
ing along the edge of the woods and upon the adjoin- 
ing meadow. As we came up, the Mormons left 
their work, seated themselves on the timber around 
us, and began earnestly to discuss points of theology, 
complain of the ill-usage they had received from the 
"Gentiles," and sound a lamentation over the loss of 
their great temple of Nauvoo. After remaining with 
them an hour we rode back to our camp, happy that 
the settlements had been delivered from the presence 
of such blind and desperate fanatics. 

On the following morning we left the Pueblo for 
Bent's Fort. The conduct of Raymond had lately 
been less satisfactory than before, and we had dis- 
charged him as soon as we arrived at the former 
place, so that the party, ourselves included, was now 
reduced to four. There was some uncertainty as to 
our future course. The trail between Bent's Fort 
and the settlements, a distance computed at six hun- 
dred miles, was at this time in a dangerous state; 
for since the passage of General Kearney's army, 
great numbers of hostile Indians, chiefly Pawnees 
and Camanches, had gathered about some parts of it. 
They became soon after so numerous and audacious 
that scarcely a single party, however large, passed 
betv/een the fort and the frontier without some token 
of their hostility. The newsjjapers of the time suffi- 
ciently display this state of things. Many men were 



THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FOUT. 377 

killed, and great numbers of horses and mules carried 
off. Not long since I met with a young man, who, 
during the autumn, came from Santa Fd to Bent's 
Fort, where he found a party of seventy men, who 
thought themselves too weak to go down to the settle- 
ments alone, and were waiting there for a reinforce- 
ment. Though this excessive timidity proves the 
ignorance of the men, it may also evince the state 
of alarm Avhicli prevailed in the country. When we 
were there in the month of August, the danger had 
not become so great. There was nothing very attrac- 
tive in the neighborliood. We supposed, moreover, 
that we might wait there half the winter without 
finding any party to go down with us; for Sublette 
and the others whom we had relied upon had, as 
Richard told us, already left Bent's Fort. Thus far 
on our journey Fortune had kindly befriended us. 
We resolved therefore to take advantage of her 
gracious mood, and trusting for a continuance of her 
favors, to set out with Henry and Deslauriers, and 
run the gantlet of the Indians in the best way we 
could. 

Bent's Fort stands on the river, about seventy-five 
miles below the Pueblo. At noon of the third day 
we arrived within three or four miles of it, pitched 
our tent under a tree, hung our looking-glasses against 
its trunk, and having made our primitive toilet, rode 
towards the fort. We soon came in sight of it, for 
it is visible from a considerable distance, standing 
with its high clay walls in the midst of the scorching 



378 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

plains. It seemed as if a swarm of locusts had in- 
vaded the country. The grass for miles around was 
cropped close by the horses of General Kearney's 
soldiery. When we came to the fort, we found that 
not only had the horses eaten up the grass, but their 
owners had made Avay with the stores of the little 
trading post; so that we had great difficulty in pro- 
curing the few articles which we required for our 
homeward journey. The array was gone, the life and 
bustle passed away, and the fort was a scene of dull 
and lazy tranquillity. A few invalid officers and 
soldiers sauntered about the area, which was oppres- 
sively hot; for the glaring sun was reflected down 
upon it from the high white walls around. The pro- 
prietors were absent, and we were received by Mr. 
Holt, who had been left in charge of the fort. He 
invited us to dinner, where, to our admiration, we 
found a table laid with a white cloth, with castors in 
the middle, and chairs placed around it. This un- 
wonted repast concluded, we rode back to our camp. * 
Here, as we lay smoking round the fire after 
supper, we saw through the dusk three men ap- 
proaching from the direction of the fort. They rode 
up and seated themselves near us on the ground. 
The foremost was a tall, well-formed man, with a 
face and manner such as inspire confidence at once. 
He wore a broad hat of felt, slouching and tattered, 
and the rest of his attire consisted of a frock and 
leggins of buckskin, rubbed with the yellow clay 
found among the mountains. At the heel of one of 



THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FOUT. 379 

his moccasons was buckled a huge iron sj^ur, with 
a rowel five or six inches in diameter. His horse, 
Avhich stood quietly looking over his head, had a 
rude Mexican saddle, covered with a shaggy bear- 
skin, and furnished with a pair of wooden stirrups of 
preposterous size. The next man was a sprightly, 
active little fellow, about five feet and a quarter 
high, but very strong and compact. His face was 
swarthy as a Mexican's, and covered with a close, 
curly, black beard. An old, greasy, calico handker- 
chief was tied round his head, and his close buckskin 
dress was blackened and polished by grease and hard 
service. The last who came up was a large, strong 
man, dressed in the coarse homespun of the frontiers, 
who dragged his long limbs over the ground as if he 
were too lazy for the effort. He had a sleepy gray 
eye, a retreating chin, an open mouth, and a protrud- 
ing upper lip, which gave him an air of exquisite 
indolence and helplessness. He was armed with 
an old United States yager, which redoubtable 
weapon, though he could never hit his mark with it, 
he was accustomed to cherish as the very sovereign 
of firearms. 

The first two men belonged to a party who had 
just come from California, with a large band of horses, 
which they had sold at Bent's Fort. Munroe, the 
taller of the two, was from Iowa. He was an excel- 
lent fellow, open, warm-hearted, and intelligent. 
Jim Gurney, the short man, was a Boston sailor, 
who had come in a trading vessel to California, and 



380 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

taken the fancy to return across the continent. The 
journey had ah-eacly made him an expert "mountain- 
man," and he presented the extraordinary phenome- 
non of a sailor who understood how to manage a 
horse. The third of our visitors, named Ellis, was a 
Missourian, who had come out with a party of Oregon 
emigrants, but liaving got as far as Bridger's Fort, 
he had fallen home-sick, or, as Jim averred, love-sick. 
lie thought proper therefore to join the California 
men, and return homeward in their company. 

They now requested that they might unite with 
our party, and make the journey to the settlements 
in company with us. We readily assented, for we 
liked the appearance of the first two men, and were 
very glad to gain so eflicicnt a reinforcement. We 
told them to meet us on the next evening at a spot 
on the river-side, about six miles below the fort. 
Having smoked a pipe together, our new allies left 
us, and we lay down to sleep. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

TETE ROUGE, THE VOLUNTEER. 

The next morning, having directed Deslauriers to 
repair with his cart to the place of meeting, we came 
again to the fort to make some arrangements for the 
journey. After completing these we sat down under 
a sort of porch, to smoke with some Shienne Indians 
whom we found there. In a few minutes we saw an 
extraordinary little figure approach us in a military 
dress. He had a small, round countenance, gar- 
nished ahout the e3^es with the kind of wrinkles com- 
monly known as crow's feet, and surmounted by an 
abundant crop of red curls, with a little cap resting 
on the top of them. Altogether, he had the look of 
a man more conversant with mint-juleps and oyster 
supj^ers than with the hardships of prairie-service. 
He came up to us and entreated that we would take 
him home to the settlements, saying that unless he 
went with us he should have to stay all winter at the 
fort. We liked our petitioner's appearance so little 
that we excused ourselves from complying with his 
request. At this he begged us so hard to take pity 
on him, looked so disconsolate, and told so lament- 
able a story, that at last we consented, though not 
without many misgivings. 



382 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

The rugged Anglo-Saxon of our new recruit's real 
name proved utterly unmanageable on the lips of our 
French attendants ; and Henry Chatillon, after various 
abortive attempts to pronounce it, one day coolly 
christened him Tete Rouge, in honor of his red curls, 
lie had at different times been clerk of a Mississippi 
steamboat, and agent in a trading establishment at 
Nauvoo, besides filling various other capacities, in all 
of which he had seen much more of "life " than was 
good for him. In the spring, thinking that a sum- 
mer's campaign would be an agreeable recreation, he 
had joined a company of St. Louis volunteers. 

"There were three of us," said Tete Rouge, "me 
and Bill Stephens and John Hopkins. We thought 
we would just go out with the army, and when we 
liad conquered the country, we would get discharged 
and take our pay, 3^ou know, and go down to Mexico. 
They say there 's plenty of fun going on there. 
Then we could go back to New Orleans by way of 
Vera Cruz." 

But Tete Rouge, like many a stouter volunteer, 
had reckoned without his host. Fighting IMexicans 
was a less amusing occupation than he had supposed, 
and his pleasure trip was disagreeably interrupted by 
brain fever, which attacked him when about halfway 
to Bent's Fort. He jolted along through the rest of 
the journey in a baggage- wagon. When they came 
to the fort he was taken out and left there, with the 
rest of the sick. Bent's Fort does not supply the 
best accommodations for an invalid. Tete Rousfe's 



t£te rouge, the volunteer. 383 

sick-chamber was a little mud room, where he and 
a companion, attacked b}- the same disease, were 
laid together, with nothing but a buffalo-robe be- 
tween them and the ground. The assistant-surgeon's 
deputy visited them once a day and brought them 
each a huge dose of calomel, the only medicine, 
according to his surviving victim, with which he was 
acquainted. 

Tete Rouge woke one morning, and turning to his 
companion, saw his eyes fixed upon the beams above 
with the glassy stare of a dead man. At this the 
unfortunate volunteer lost his senses outright. In 
spite of the doctor, however, he eventually recovered ; 
though between the brain fever and the calomel, his 
mind, originally none of the strongest, was so much 
shaken that it had not quite recovered its balance 
when we came to the fort. In spite of the poor 
fellow's tragic stor}-, there was something so ludi- 
crous in his appearance, and the whimsical contrast 
between his military dress and his most unmilitary 
demeanor, that we could not help smiling at them. 
We asked him if he had a gun. He said they had 
taken it from him during his illness, and he had not 
seen it since; but "perhaps," he observed, looking at 
me with a beseeching air, " you will lend me one of 
your big pistols if we should meet with any Indians." 
I next inquired if he had a horse ; he declared he had 
a magnificent one, and at Shaw's request, a Mexican 
led him in for inspection. He exhibited the outline 
of a good horse, but his eyes were sunk in the 



384 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

sockets, and every one of his ribs could be counted. 
There were certain marks too about his shoulders, 
which could be accounted for by the circumstance 
that, during Tete Rouge's illness, his companions had 
seized upon the insulted charger, and harnessed him 
to a cannon along v/ith the draft horses. To Tete 
Rouge's astonishment we recommended him by all 
means to exchange the horse, if he could, for a mule. 
Fortunately the people at the fort were so anxious to 
get rid of him that they were willing to make some 
sacrifice to effect the object, and he succeeded in get- 
ting a tolerable mule in exchange for the broken- 
down steed. 

A man soon appeared at tlie gate, leading in the 
mule by a cord, which he placed in the hands of T^te 
Rouge, who, being somewhat afraid of his new 
acquisition, tried various flatteries and blandishments 
to induce her to come forward. The mule, knowing 
that she was expected to advance, stopped short in 
consequence, and stood fast as a rock, looking straight 
forward with immovable composure. Being stimu- 
lated by a blow from behind, she consented to move, 
and walked nearly to the other side of the fort before 
she stopped again. Hearing the bystanders laugh, 
Tete Rouge plucked up spirit and tugged hard at 
the rope. The mule jerked backward, spun herself 
round, and made a dash for the gate. Tete Rouge, 
who clung manfully to the rope, went whisking 
through the air for a few rods, when he let go and 
stood with his mouth open, staring after the mule, 



t£te rouge, the volunteer. 385 

which galloped away over the prairie. She was soon 
caught and brought back by a Mexican, who mounted 
a horse and went in pursuit of her with his lasso. 

Having thus displayed his capacities for prairie 
travelling, Tete Rouge proceeded to supply himself 
with provisions for the journey, and with this view 
applied to a quartermaster's assistant who was in the 
fort. This official had a face as sour as vinegar, 
being in a state of chronic indignation because he 
had been left behind the army. He was as anxious 
as the rest to get rid of Tete Rouge. So, producing 
a rusty key, he opened a low door which led to a half 
subterranean apartment, into which the two disap- 
peared together. After some time they came out 
again, Tete Rouge greatly embarrassed by a multi- 
plicity of paper parcels containing the different 
articles of his forty days' rations. They were con- 
signed to the care of Deslauriers, who about that 
time passed by with the cart on his way to the 
appointed place of meeting with Munroe and his 
companions. 

We next urged Tete Rouge to provide himself, if 

he could, with a gun. He accordingly made earnest 

appeals to the charity of various persons in the fort, 

but totally without success, — a circumstance which 

did not greatly disturb us, since in the event of a 

skirmish, he would be more apt to do mischief to 

himself or his friends than to the enemy. When all 

these arrangements were completed, we saddled our 

horses, and were preparing to leave the fort, when 

25 



386 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

looking round we discovered that our new associate 
was in fresh trouble. A man was holding the mule 
for him in the middle of the fort, while he tried to 
put the saddle on her back, but she kept stepping 
sideways and moving round and round in a circle 
until he was almost in despair. It required some 
assistance before all his difficulties could be over- 
come. At lengfth he clambered into the black war- 
saddle on which he was to have carried terror into 
the ranks of the Mexicans. 

"Get up," said Tete Rouge; "come now, go along, 
will you?" 

The mule walked deliberately forward out of the 
gate. Her recent conduct had inspired him with so 
much awe that he never dared to touch her with his 
whip. We trotted forward towards the place of meet- 
ing; but before we had gone far, we saw that Tete 
Rouge's mule, who perfectly understood her rider, 
had stopped and was quietly grazing, in spite of his 
protestations, at some distance behind. So getting 
behind him, we drove him and the contumacious 
mule before us, until we could see through the twi- 
light the gleaming of a distant fire. Munroe, Jim, 
and Ellis were lying around it; their saddles, packs, 
and weapons were scattered about, and their horses 
picketed near them. Deslauriers was there too with 
our little cart. Another fire was soon blazing. We 
invited our new allies to take a cup of coffee with us. 
When both the others had gone over to their side of 
the camp, Jim Gurney still stood by the blaze, puffing 



T^TE ROUGE, THE VOLUNTEER. 387 

liard at his little black pipe, as short and weather- 
beaten as himself. 

"Well," he said, "here are eight of us; we '11 call 
it six — for them two boobies, Ellis over yonder, and 
that new man of yours, won't count for anything. 
We '11 get through well enough, never fear for that, 
unless the Comanches happen to get foul of us." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

INDIAN ALARMS. 

We began our journey for the settlements on the 
twenty-seventh of August, and certainly a more raga- 
muffin cavalcade never was seen on the banks of the 
Upper Arkansas. Of the large and fine horses with 
which we had left the frontier in the spring, not one 
remained: we had supplied their place with the 
rough breed of the prairie, as hardy as mules and 
almost as ugly; we had also with us a number of the 
latter detestable animals. In spite of their strength 
and hardihood, several of the band were already 
worn down by hard service and hard fare, and as 
none of them were shod, they were fast becoming 
footsore. Every horse and mule had a cord of 
twisted bull-hide coiled about his neck, which by no 
means added to the beauty of his appearance. Our 
saddles and all our equipments were worn and bat- 
tered, and our weapons had become dull and rusty. 
The dress of the riders corresponded with the dilapi- 
dated furniture of our horses, and of the whole party 
none made a more disreputable appearance than my 
friend and I. Shaw had for an upper garment an 
old red flannel shirt, flying open in front, and belted 



INDIAX ALARMS. 389 

around hiin like a frock ; while I, in absence of other 
clothing, was attired in a time-worn suit of buck- 
skin. 

Thus, hapjDy and careless as so many beggars, we 
crept slowly from day to day along the monotonous 
banks of the Arkansas. Tete Rouge gave constant 
trouble, for he could never catch his mule, saddle 
her, or indeed do anything else without assistance. 
Every day he had some new ailment, real or imagi- 
nary, to complain of. At one moment he would be 
woe-begone and disconsolate, and at the next he 
would be visited with a violent flow of spirits, to 
which he could only give vent by incessant laughing, 
whistling, and telling stories. When other resources 
failed, w^e used to amuse ourselves by tormenting 
him ; a fair compensation for the trouble he cost us. 
Tete Rouge rather enjoyed being laughed at, for he 
was an odd compound of weakness, eccentricity', and 
good-nature. He made a figure worthy of a painter 
as he paced along before us, perched on the back of 
his mule, and enveloped in a huge buffalo-robe coat, 
which some charitable person had given him at the 
fort. This extraordinary garment, which would have 
contained two men of his size, he chose, for some 
reason best known to himself, to wear inside out, and 
he never took it off, even in the hottest weather. It 
was fluttering all over with seams and tatters, and 
the hide was so old and rotten that it broke out every 
day in a new place. Just at the top of it a large pile 
of red curls was visible, with his little cap set jauntily 



390 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

upon one side, to give him a military air. His seat 
in tlie saddle was no less remarkable than his person 
and equipment. He pressed one leg close against his 
mule's side, and thrust the other out at an angle of 
forty-five degrees. His trousers were decorated with 
a military red stripe, of which he was extremely vain ; 
but being much too short, the whole length of his 
boots was usually visible below them. His blanket, 
loosely rolled up into a large bundle, dangled at the 
back of his saddle, where he carried it tied with a 
string. Four or five times a day it would fall to the 
ground. Every few minutes he would drop his pipe, 
his knife, his flint and steel, or a piece of tobacco, 
and scramble down to pick them up. In doing this 
he would contrive to get in everybody's way; and as 
most of the party were by no means remarkable for a 
fastidious choice of language, a storm of anathemas 
would be showered upon him, half in earnest and 
half in jest, until Tete Rouge would declare that 
there was no comfort in life, and that he never saw 
such fellows before. 

Only a day or two after leaving Bent's Fort, 
Henry Chatillon rode forward to hunt, and took Ellis 
along with him. After they had been some time 
absent we saw them coming down the hill, driving 
three dragoon-horses, which had escaped from their 
owners on the march, or perhaps had given out and 
been abandoned. One of them was in tolerable 
condition, but the others were much emaciated 
and severely bitten by the wolves. Reduced as they 



INDIAN ALARMS. 391 

were, we carried two of them to the settlements, and 
Henry exchanged the third with the Arapahoes for 
an excellent mule. 

On the day after, when we had stopped to rest at 
noon, a long train of Santa ¥6 wagons came up and 
trailed slowly past us in their picturesque procession. 
They belonged to a trader named Magoffin, whose 
brother, with a number of other men, came and sat 
down with us on the grass. The news they brought 
was not of the most pleasing complexion. According 
to their accounts, the trail below was in a very 
dangerous state. They had repeatedly detected 
Indians prowling at night around their camps; and 
the large party which had left Bent's Fort a few 
weeks before us had been attacked, and a man 
named Swan, from Massachusetts, had been killed. 
His companions had buried the body; but when 
Magoffin found his grave, which was near a place 
called "The Caches," the Indians had dug up and 
scalped him, and the wolves had shockingly mangled 
his remains. As an offset to this intelUgence, they 
gave us the welcome information that the buffalo 
were numerous at a few days' journey below. 

On the next afternoon, as we moved along the 
bank of the river, we saw the white tops of wagons 
on the horizon. It was some hours before we met 
them, when they proved to be a train of clumsy ox- 
wagons, quite different from the rakish vehicles of 
the Santa F4 traders, and loaded with government 
stores for the troops. They all stopped, and the 



392 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

drivers gathered around us in a crowd. Many of 
them were mere boys, fresh from the plough. In 
respect to the state of the trail, they confirmed all 
that the Santa ¥6 men had told us. In passing 
between the Pawnee Fork and the Caches, their 
sentinels had fired every night at real or imaginary 
Indians. They said also that Ewing, a young Ken- 
tuckian in the party that had gone down before us, 
had shot an Indian who was prowling at evening 
about the camp. Some of them advised us to turn 
back, and others to hasten forward as fast as we could ; 
but they all seemed in such a state of feverish anxiety 
and so little capable of cool judgment, that we 
attached slight weight to what they said. They next 
gave us a more definite piece of intelligence : a large 
village of Arapahoes was encamped on the river 
below. They represented them to be friendly; but 
some distinction was to be made between a party of 
thirty men, travelling with oxen, which are of no 
value in an Indian's eyes, and a mere handful like 
ourselves, with a tempting band of mules and horses. 
Early in the afternoon of the next day, looking 
along the horizon before us, we saw that at one point 
it was faintly marked with pale indentations, like the 
teeth of a saw. The distant lodges of the Arapahoes, 
rising between us and the sky, caused this singular 
appearance. It wanted still two or three hours of 
sunset when we came opposite their camp. There 
were full two hundred lodges standing in the midst 
of a grassy meadow at some distance beyond the 



INDIAN ALARMS. 393 

river, while for a mile around on both hanKs of the 
Arkansas were scattered some fifteen hundred horses 
and mules, grazing together in bands, or wandering 
singly about the prairie. The whole were visible 
at once, for the vast expanse was unbroken by hills, 
and there was not a tree or a bush to intercept the 
view. 

Here and there walked an Indian, engaged in 
watching the horses. No sooner did we see them 
than Tete Rouge begged Deslauriers to stop the cart 
and hand him liis military jacket, which was stowed 
away there. In this he invested himself, having for 
once laid the old buffalo-coat aside, assumed a mar- 
tial posture in the saddle, set his cap over his left 
eye with an air of defiance, and earnestly entreated 
that somebody would lend him a gun or a pistol only 
for half an hour. Being called upon to explain these 
proceedings, Tete Rouge observed, that he knew from 
experience what effect the presence of a military man 
in his uniform always has upon the mind of an Indian, 
and he thought the Arapahoes ought to know that 
there was a soldier in the party. 

Meeting Arapahoes here on the Arkansas was a 
very different thing from meeting the same Indians 
among their native mountains. There was another 
circumstance in our favor. General Kearney had 
seen them a few weeks before, as he came up the 
river with his army, and, renewing his threats of the 
previous year, he told them that if they ever again 
touched the hair of a white man's head he would 



394 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

exterminate their nation. This placed them for the 
time in an admirable frame of mind, and the effect of 
his menaces had not yet disappeared. I wished to 
6ee the village and its inhabitants. We thought it 
also our best policy to visit them openly, as if unsus- 
picious of any hostile design; and Shaw and I, with 
Henry Chatillon, prepared to cross the river. The 
rest of the party meanwhile moved forward as fast as 
they could, in order to get as far as possible from our 
suspicious neighbors before night came on. 

The Arkansas at this point, and for several hun- 
dred miles below, is nothing but a broad sand-bed, 
over which glide a few scanty threads of water, now 
and then expanding into wide shallows. At several 
places, during the autumn, the water sinks into the 
sand and disappears altogether. At this season, 
were it not for the numerous quicksands, the river 
might be forded almost anywhere without difficulty, 
though its channel is often a quarter of a mile wide. 
Our horses jumped down the bank, and wading 
through the water, or galloping freely over the hard 
sand-beds, soon reached the other side. Here, as we 
were pushing through the tall grass, we saw several 
Indians not far off; one of them waited until we 
came up, and stood for some moments in perfect 
silence before us, looking at us askance with his little 
snake-like eyes. Henry explained by signs what we 
wanted, and the Indian, gathering his buffalo-robe 
about his shoulders, led the way towards the village 
without speaking a word. 



INDIAN ALARMS. 395 

The language of the Arapahoes is so difficult, and 
its pronunciation so harsh and guttural, that no 
white man, it is said, has ever been able to master it. 
Even Maxwell, the trader who has been most among 
them, is compelled to resort to the curious sign- 
language common to most of the prairie tribes. With 
this sign-language Henry Chatillon was perfectly- 
acquainted. 

Approaching the village, we found the ground 
strewn with piles of waste buffalo-meat in incredible 
quantities. The lodges were pitched in a circle. 
They resembled those of the Dahcotah in everything 
but cleanliness. Passing between two of them, we 
entered the great circular area of the camp, and 
instantly hundreds of Indians, men, women, and 
children, came flocking out of their habitations to 
look at us ; at the same time, the dogs all around the 
village set up a discordant baying. Our Indian guide 
walked towards the lodge of the chief. Here we 
dismounted; and loosening the trail-ropes from our 
horses' necks, held them fast as we sat down before 
the entrance, with our rifles laid across our laps. 
The chief came out and shook us by the hand. He 
was a mean-looking fellow, very tall, thin-visaged, 
and sinewy, like the rest of the nation, and with 
scarcely a vestige of clothing. We had not been 
seated a moment before a multitude of Indians came 
crowding around us from every part of the village, 
and we were shut in by a dense wall of savage faces. 
Some of our visitors crouched around us on the 



396 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ground; others sat behind them; others, stooping, 
looked over their heads; while many more stood 
behind, peering over each other's shoulders, to get a 
view of us. I looked in vain among this throng of 
faces to discover one manly or generous expression; 
all were wolfish, sinister, and malignant, and their 
complexions, as well as their features, unlike those 
of the Dahcotah, were exceedingly bad. The chief, 
who sat close to the entrance, called to a squaw 
within the lodge, who soon came out and placed a 
wooden bowl of meat before us. To our surprise, 
however, no pipe was offered. Having tasted of the 
meat as a matter of form, I began to open a bundle 
of presents, — tobacco, knives, vermilion, and other 
articles which I had brought with me. At this there 
was a grin on every countenance in the rapacious 
crowd; their eyes began to glitter, and long thin 
arms were eagerly stretched towards us on all sides 
to receive the gifts. 

The Arapahoes set great value upon their shields, 
which they transmit carefully from father to son. I 
wished to get one of them; and displaying a large 
piece of scarlet cloth, together with some tobacco 
and a knife, I offered them to any one who would 
bring me what I wanted. After some delay a toler- 
able shield was produced. They were very anxious 
to know what we meant to do with it, and Henry 
told them that we were going to fight their enemies 
the Pawnees. This instantly produced a visible 
impression in our favor, which was increased by the 



INDIAN ALARMS. 397 

distribution of the presents. Among these was a 
large paper of awls, a gift appropriate to the women; 
and as we were anxious to see the beauties of the 
Arapahoe village, Henry requested that they might 
be called to receive them. A warrior gave a shout, 
as if he were calling a pack of dogs together. The 
squaws, young and old, hags of eighty and girls of 
sixteen, came running with screams and laughter out 
of the lodges ; and as the men gave way for them, 
they gathered round us and stretched out their arms, 
grinning with delight, their native ugliness consider- 
ably enhanced by the excitement of the moment. 

Mounting our horses, which during the whole 
interview we had held close to us, we prepared to 
leave the Arapahoes. The crowd fell back on each 
side, and stood looking on. "When we were half 
across the camp an idea occurred to us. The 
Pawnees were probably in the neighborhood of the 
Caches; we might tell the Arapahoes of this, and 
instigate them to send down a war-party and cut 
them off, while we ourselves could remain behind 
for a while and hunt the buffalo. At first thought, 
this plan of setting our enemies to destroy one another 
seemed to us a master-piece of policy ; but we imme- 
diately recollected that should we meet the Arapahoe 
warriors on the river below, they might prove quite 
as dangerous as the Pawnees themselves. So reject- 
ing our plan as soon as it presented itself, we passed 
out of the village on the farther side. We urged 
our horses rapidly through the tall grass, which rose 



398 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to their necks. Several Indians were walking through 
it at a distance, their heads just visible above its 
waving surface. It bore a kind of seed, as sweet and 
nutritious as oats ; and our hungry horses, in spite of 
whip and rein, could not resist the temptation of 
snatching at this unwonted luxury as we passed along. 
When about a mile from the village, I turned and 
looked back over the undulating ocean of grass. The 
sun was just set; the western sky was all in a glow, 
and sharply defined against it, on the extreme verge 
of the plain, stood the clustered lodges of the Arapahoe 
camp. 

Reaching the bank of the river, we followed it for 
some distance farther, until we discerned through 
the twilight the white covering of our little cart on 
the opposite bank. When we reached it we found 
a considerable number of Indians there before us. 
Four or five of them were seated in a row upon the 
ground, looking like so many half-starved vultures. 
Tete Rouge, in his uniform, was holding a close 
colloquy with another by the side of the cart. Find- 
ing his signs and gesticulation of no avail, he tried 
to make the Indian understand him by repeating 
English words very loudly and distinctly again and 
again. The Indian sat with his eye fixed steadily 
upon him, and in spite of the rigid immobility of his 
features, it was clear at a glance that he perfectly 
understood and despised his military companion. 
The exhibition was more amusing than politic, and 
Tete Rouge was directed to finish what he had to say 



INDIAN ALARMS. 399 

as soon as possible. Thus reLuked, he crept under 
the cart and sat down there ; Henry Chatillon stooped 
to look at him in his retirement, and remarked in his 
quiet manner that an Indian would kill ten such men 
and laugh all the time. 

One by one our visitors arose and stalked away. 
As the darkness thickened we were saluted by dis- 
mal sounds. The wolves are incredibly numerous 
in this part of the country, and the offal around the 
Arapahoe camp had drawn such multitudes of them 
together that several hundreds were howling in con- 
cert in our immediate neighborhood. There was an 
island in the river, or rather an oasis in the midst of 
the sands, at about the distance of a gun-shot, and 
here they seemed to be gathered in the greatest num- 
bers. A horrible discord of low mournful wailings, 
mingled with ferocious howls, arose from it inces- 
santly for several hours after sunset. We could dis- 
tinctly see the wolves running about the prairie 
within a few rods of our fire, or bounding over the 
sand-beds of the river and splashing through the 
water. There was not the slightest danger from 
them, for they are the greatest cowards on the 
prairie. 

In respect to the human wolves in our neighbor- 
hood, we felt much less at our ease. That night 
each man spread his buffalo-robe upon the ground 
with his loaded rifle laid at his side or clasped in his 
arms. Our horses were picketed so close around us 
that one of them repeatedly stepped over me as I lay. 



400 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

We were not in the habit of placing a guard, but 
every man was anxious and watchful : there was little 
sound sleeping in camp, and some one of the party- 
was on his feet during the greater part of the night. 
For myself, I lay alternately waking and dozing until 
midnight. Tete Rouge was reposing close to the 
river-bank, and about this time, when half asleep and 
half awake, I was conscious that he shifted his posi- 
tion and crept on all-fours under the cart. Soon 
after I fell into a sound sleep, from which I was 
roused by a hand shaking me by the shoulder. 
Looking up, I saw Tete Rouge stooping over me 
with a pale face and dilated eyes. 

"What 's the matter?" said I. 

Tete Rouge declared that as he lay on the river- 
bank, something caught his eye which excited his 
suspicions. So creeping under the cart for safety's 
sake, he sat there and watched, when he saw two 
Indians, wrapped in white robes, creep up the bank, 
seize upon two horses and lead them off. He looked 
so frightened and told his story in such a disconnected 
manner that I did not believe him, and was unwilling 
to alarm the party. Still, it might be true, and in 
that case the matter required instant attention. So, 
directing Tete Rouge to show me which way the 
Indians had gone, I took my rifle, in obedience to a 
thoughtless impulse, and left the camp. I followed 
the river-bank for two or three hundred yards, listen- 
ing and looking anxiously on every side. In the 
dark prairie on the right I could discern nothing to 



INDIAN ALARMS. 401 

excite alarm; and in the dusky bed of the river, a 
wolf was bounding along in a manner which no Indian 
could imitate. I returned to the camp, and when 
within sight of it, saw that the whole party was 
aroused. Shaw called out to me that he had counted 
the horses, and that every one of them was in his 
place. Tete Rouge, being examined as to what he 
had seen, only repeated his former story with many 
asseverations, and insisted that two horses were 
certainly carried off. At this Jim Gurney declared 
that he was crazy; Tete Rouge indignantly denied 
the charge, on which Jim appealed to us. As we 
declined to give our judgment on so delicate a matter, 
the dispute grew hot between Tete Rouge and his 
accuser, until he was directed to go to bed and not 
alarm the camp again if he saw the whole Arapahoe 
village coming. 



86 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE CHASE. 

The country before us was now thronged with 
buffalo, and a sketch of the manner of hunting them 
will not be out of place. There are two methods 
commonly practised, "running" and "approaching." 
The chase on horseback, which goes by the name of 
"running," is the more violent and dashing mode of 
the two, that is to say, when the buffalo are in one 
of their wild moods ; for otherwise it is tame enough. 
A practised and skilful hunter, well mounted, will 
sometimes kill five or six cows in a single chase, 
loading his gun again and again as his horse rushes 
through the tumult. In attacking a small band of 
buffalo, or in separating a single animal from the 
herd and assailing it apart from the rest, there is less 
excitement and less danger. In fact, the animals are 
at times so stupid and lethargic that there is little 
sport in killing them. With a bold and well-trained 
horse the hunter may ride so close to the buffalo that 
as they gallop side by side he may touch him with 
his hand ; nor is there much danger in this as long as 
the buffalo's strength and breath continue unabated ; 
but when he becomes tired and can no longer run 



THE CHASE. 403 

with ease, wlien his tongue lolls out and the foam 
flies from his jaws, then the hunter had better keep a 
more respectful distance ; the distressed brute may 
turn upon him at any instant ; and especially at the 
moment when he fires his gun. The horse then leaps 
aside, and the hunter has need of a tenacious seat in 
the saddle, for if he is thrown to the ground there is 
no hope for him. When he sees his attack defeated, 
the buffalo resumes his flight, but if the shot is well 
directed he soon stops ; for a few moments he stands 
still, then totters and falls heavily upon the prairie. 

The chief difficulty in running buffalo, as it seems 
to me, is that of loading the gun or pistol at full 
gallop. Many hunters for convenience' sake carry 
three or four bullets in the mouth; the powder is 
poured down the muzzle of the piece, the bullet 
dropped in after it, the stock struck hard upon the 
pommel of the saddle, and the work is done. The 
danger of this is obvious. Should the blow on 
the pommel fail to send the bullet home, or should 
the bullet, in the act of aiming, start from its place 
and roll towards the muzzle, the gun would probably 
burst in discharging. Many a shattered hand and 
worse casualties besides have been the result of such 
an accident. To obviate it, some hunters make use 
of a ramrod, usually hung by a string from the neck, 
but this materially increases the difficulty of loading. 
The bows and arrows which the Indians use in run- 
ning buffalo have many advantages over firearms, 
and even white men occasionally employ them. 



404 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

The danger of the chase arises not so much from 
the onset of the wounded animal as from the nature 
of the ground which the hunter must ride over. The 
prairie does not always present a smooth, level, and 
uniform surface; very often it is broken with hills 
and hollows, intersected by ravines, and in the 
remoter parts studded by the stiif wild-sage bushes. 
The most formidable obstructions, however, are the 
burrows of wild animals, wolves, badgers, and par- 
ticularly prairie-dogs, with whose holes the ground 
for a very great extent is frequently honeycombed. 
In the blindness of the chase the hunter rushes over 
it unconscious of danger; his horse, at full career, 
thrusts his leg deep into one of the burrows; the 
bone snaps, the rider is hurled forward to the ground 
and probably killed. Yet accidents in buffalo run- 
ning happen less frequently than one would suppose; 
in the recklessness of the chase, the hunter enjoys 
all the impunity of a drunken man, and may ride in 
safety over gullies and declivities, where, should he 
attempt to pass in his sober senses, he would infallibly 
break his neck. 

The method of "approaching," being practised on 
foot, has many advantages over that of " running ; " 
in the former, one neither breaks down his horse nor 
endangers his own life; he must be cool, collected, 
and watchful; must understand the buffalo, observe 
the features of the country and the course of the 
wind, and be well skilled in using the rifle. The 
buffalo are strange animals; sometimes they are so 



THE CHASE. 405 

stupid and infatuated that a man may walk up to 
them in full sight on the open prairie, and even shoot 
several of their number before the rest will think it 
necessary to retreat. At another moment they will 
be so shy and wary that in order to approach them 
the utmost skill, experience, and judgment are neces- 
sary. Kit Carson, I believe, stands pre-eminent in 
running buffalo; in approaching, no man living can 
bear away the palm from Henry Chatillon. 

After Tete Rouge had alarmed the camp, no 
farther disturbance occurred during the night. The 
Arapahoes did not attempt mischief, or if they did 
the wakefulness of the party deterred them from 
effecting their purpose. The next day was one of 
activity and excitement, for about ten o'clock the 
man in advance shouted the gladdening cry of 'buffalo^ 
huffalo ! and in the hollow of the prairie just below 
us, a band of bulls were grazing. The temptation 
was irresistible, and Shaw and I rode down upon 
them. We were badly mounted on our travelling 
horses, but by hard lashing we overtook them, and 
Shaw, running alongside a bull, shot into him both 
balls of his double-barrelled gun. Looking round as 
I galloped by, I saw the bull in his mortal fury rush- 
ing again and again upon his antagonist, whose horse 
constantly leaped aside, and avoided the onset. My 
chase was more protracted, but at length I ran close 
to the bull and killed him with my pistols. Cutting 
off the tails of our victims by way of trophy, we 
rejoined the party in about a quarter of an hour after 



406 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

we had left it. Again and again that morning rang 
out the same welcome cry of huffalo^ huffalo ! Every 
few moments, in the broad meadows along the river, 
we saw bands of bulls, who, raising their shaggy 
heads, would gaze in stupid amazement at the ap- 
proaching horsemen, and then breaking into a clumsy 
gallop, file off in a long line across the trail in front, 
towards the rising prairie on the left. At noon, the 
plain before us was alive with thousands of buffalo, 
— bulls, cows, and calves, — all moving rapidly as we 
drew near; and far off beyond the river the swelling 
prairie was darkened with them to the very horizon. 
The party was in gayer spirits than ever. We 
stopped for a nooning near a grove of trees by the 
river. 

" Tongues and hump-ribs to-morrow, " said Shaw, 
looking with contempt at the venison steaks which 
Deslauriers placed before us. Our meal finished, we 
lay down to sleep. A shout from Henry Chatillon 
aroused us, and we saw him standing on the cart- 
wheel, stretching his tall figure to its full height, 
while he looked towards the prairie beyond the river. 
Following the direction of his eyes, we could clearly 
distinguish a large dark object, like the black shadow 
of a cloud, passing rapidly over swell after swell of 
the distant plain; behind it followed another of 
similar appearance, though smaller, moving more 
rapidly, and drawing closer and closer to the first. 
It was the hunters of the Arapahoe camp chasing a 
band of buffalo. Shaw and I caught and saddled our 



THE CHASE. 407 

best horses, and went plunging tlirougk sand and 
water to the farther bank. We were too late. The 
hunters had already mingled with the herd, and the 
work of slaughter was nearly over. When we reached 
the ground we found it strewn far and near with 
numberless carcasses, while the remnants of the herd, 
scattered in all directions, were flying away in terror, 
and the Indians still rushing in pursuit. Many of 
the hunters, however, remained upon the spot, and 
among the rest was our yesterday's acquaintance, the 
chief of the village. He had alighted by the side of 
a cow, into which he had shot five or six arrows, and 
his squaw, who had followed him on horseback to the 
hunt, was giving him a draught of water from a can- 
teen, purchased or plundered from some volunteer 
soldier. Recrossing the river, we overtook the party, 
who were already on their way. 

We had gone scarcely a mile when we saw an 
imposing spectacle. From the river-bank on the 
right, away over the swelling prairie on the left, and 
in front as far as the eye could reach, was one vast 
host of buffalo. The outskirts of the herd were 
within a quarter of a mile. In many parts they were 
crowded so densely together that in the distance their 
rounded backs presented a surface of uniform black- 
ness; but elsewhere they were more scattered, and 
from amid the multitude rose little columns of dust 
where some of them were rolling on the ground. 
Here and there a battle was going forward among the 
bulls. We could distinctly see them rushing against 



408 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

each other, and hear the chittering of their horns and 
their hoarse bellowing. Shaw was riding at some 
distance in advance, with Henry Chatillon; I saw 
him stop and cbaw the leather covering from his gun. 
With such a sight before us, but one thing could be 
thought of. That morning I had used pistols in the 
chase. I had now a mind to try the virtue of a gun. 
Deslauriers had one, and I rode up to the side of the 
cart; there he sat under the white covering, bit- 
ing his pipe between his teeth and grinning with 
excitement. 

"Lend me your gun, Deslauriers." 

"Oui, Monsieur, oui," said Deslauriers, tugging 
with might and main to stop the mule, which seemed 
obstinately bent on going forward. Then everything 
but his moccasons disappeared as he crawled into the 
cart and pulled at the gun to extricate it. 

"Is it loaded?" I asked. 

"Oui, bien charg^; you'll kill, mon bourgeois; 
yes, you'll kill — c'est un bon fusil." 

I handed him my rifle and rode forward to Shaw. 

"Are you read}^?" he asked. 

"Come on," said I. 

"Keep down that hollow," said Henry, "and then 
they won't see you till you get close to them." 

The hollow was a kind of wide ravine; it ran 
obliquely towards the buffalo, and we rode at a canter 
along the bottom until it became too shallow; then 
we bent close to our horses' necks, and, at last, 
finding that it could no longer conceal us, came out 



THE CHASE. 409 

of it and rode directly towards the herd. It was 
within gunshot ; before its outskirts, numerous grizzly 
old bulls were scattered, holding guard over their 
females. They glared at us in anger and astonish- 
ment, walked towards us a few yards, and then turn- 
ing slowly round, retreated at a trot which afterwards 
broke into a clumsy gallop. In an instant the main 
body caught the alarm. The buffalo began to crowd 
away from the point towards which we were approach- 
ing, and a gap was opened in the side of the herd. 
We entered it, still restraining our excited horses. 
Every instant the tumult was thickening. The 
buffalo, pressing together in large bodies, crowded 
away from us on every hand. In front and on either 
side we could see dark columns and masses, half 
hidden by clouds of dust, rushing along in terror and 
confusion, and hear the tramp and clattering of ten 
thousand hoofs. That countless multitude of power- 
ful brutes, ignorant of their own strength, were flying 
in a panic from the approach of two feeble horsemen. 
To remain quiet longer was impossible. 

"Take that band on the left," said Shaw; "I'll 
take these in front." 

He sprang off, and I saw no more of him. A 
heavy Indian whip was fastened by a band to my 
wrist; I swung it into the air and lashed my horse's 
flank with all the strength of my arm. Away she 
darted, stretching close to the ground. I could see 
nothing but a cloud of dust before me, but I knew 
that it concealed a band of many hundreds of buffalo. 



410 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

In a moment I was in the midst of the cloud, half 
suffocated by the dust and stunned by the trampling 
of the flying herd; but I was drunk with the chase 
and cared for nothing but the buffalo. Very soon a 
long dark mass became visible, looming through the 
dust; then I could distinguish each bulky carcass, 
the hoofs flying out beneath, the short tails held 
rigidly erect. In a moment I was so close that I 
could have touched them with my gun. Suddenly, to 
my amazement, the hoofs were jerked upwards, the 
tails flourished in the air, and amid a cloud of dust 
the buffalo seemed to sink into the earth before me. 
One vivid impression of that instant remains upon my 
mind. I remember looking down upon the backs of 
several buffalo dimly visible through the dust. We 
had run unawares upon a ravine. At that moment I 
was not the most accurate judge of depth and width, 
but when I passed it on my return, I found it about 
twelve feet deep and not quite twice as wide at the 
bottom. It was impossible to stop; I would have 
done so gladly if I could ; so, half sliding, half plun- 
ging, down went the little mare. She came down on 
her knees in the loose sand at the bottom; I was 
pitched forward against her neck and nearly thrown 
over her head among the buffalo, who amid dust and 
confusion came tumbling in all around. The mare 
was on her feet in an instant and scrambling like a 
cat up the opposite side. I thought for a moment 
that she would have fallen l)ack and crushed me, but 
with a violent effort she clambered out and gained 



THE CHASE. 411 

the hard prairie above. Ghincing back, I saw the 
huge head of a bull clinging as it were by the forefeet 
at the edge of the dusty gulf. At length I was fairly 
among the buffalo. They were less densely crowded 
than before, and I could see nothing but bulls, who 
always run at the rear of a herd to protect their 
females. As I passed among them they would lower 
their heads, and turning as they ran, try to gore my 
horse ; but as they were already at full speed there 
was no force in their onset, and as Pauline ran faster 
than they, they were always thrown behind her in 
the effort. I soon began to distinguish cows amid 
the throng. One just in front of me seemed to my 
liking, and I pushed close to her side. Dropping the 
reins, I fired, holding the muzzle of the gun within a 
foot of her shoulder. Quick as lightning she sprang 
at Pauline ; the little mare dodged the attack, and I 
lost sight of the wounded animal amid the tumult. 
Immediately after, I selected another, and urging 
forward Pauline, shot into her both pistols in succes- 
sion. For a while I kept her in view, but in attempt- 
ing to load my gun, lost sight of her also in the 
confusion. Believing her to be mortally wounded 
and unable to keep up with the herd, I checked my 
horse. The crowd rushed onwards. The dust and 
tumult passed away, and on the prairie, far behind 
the rest, I saw a solitary buffalo galloping heavily. 
In a moment I and my victim were running side by 
side. My firearms were all empty, and I had in 
my pouch nothing but rifle bullets, too large for the 



412 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

pistols and too small for the gun. I loaded the gun, 
however, but as often as I levelled it to fire, the 
bullets would roll out of the muzzle and the gun 
returned only a report like a squib, as the powder 
harmlessly exploded. I rode in front of the buffalo 
and tried to turn her back; but her eyes glared, her 
mane bristled, and, lowering her head, she rushed at 
me with the utmost fierceness and activity. Again 
and again I rode before her, and again and again she 
repeated her furious charge. But little Pauline was 
in her element. She dodged her enemy at every 
rush, until at length the buffalo stood still, exhausted 
with her own efforts, her tongue lolling from her jaws. 
Riding to a little distance, I dismounted, thinking 
to gather a handful of dry grass to serve the purpose 
of wadding, and load the gun at my leisure. No 
sooner were my feet on the ground than the buffalo 
came bounding in such a rage towards me that I 
jumped back again into the saddle with all possible 
despatch. After waiting a few minutes more, I 
made an attempt to ride up and stab her with my 
knife; but Pauline was near being gored in the 
attempt. At length, bethinking me of the fringes at 
the seams of my buckskin trousers, I jerked off a 
few of them, and, reloading the gun, forced them 
down the barrel to keep the bullet in its place ; then 
approaching, I shot the wounded buffalo tlirough the 
heart. Sinking to her knees, she rolled over lifeless 
on the prairie. To my astonishment, I found that, 
instead of a cow, I had been slaughtering a stout 



THE CHASE. 413 

yearling bull. No longer wondering at his fierceness, 
I opened his throat, and cutting out his tongue, tied 
it at the back of my saddle. ]\Iy mistake was one 
which a more experienced eye than mine might easily 
make in the dust and confusion of such a chase. 

Then for the first time I had leisure to look at the 
scene around me. The prairie in front was darkened 
with the retreating multitude, and on either hand 
the buffalo came filing up in endless columns from 
the low plains upon the river. The Arkansas was 
three or four miles distant. I turned and moved 
slowly towards it. A long time passed before, far in 
the distance, I distinguished the white covering of 
the cart and the little black specks of horsemen before 
and behind it. Drawing near, I recognized Shaw's 
elegant tunic, the red flannel shirt, conspicuous far 
off. I overtook the party, and asked him what suc- 
cess he had had. He had assailed a fat cow, shot 
her with two bullets, and mortally wounded her. 
But neither of us was prepared for the chase that 
afternoon, and Shaw, like myself, had no spare 
bullets in his pouch; so he abandoned the disabled 
animal to Henry Chatillon, who followed, despatched 
her with his rifle, and loaded his horse with the 
meat. 

We encamped close to the river. The night was 
dark, and as we lay down we could hear, mingled 
with the bowlings of wolves, the hoarse bellowing of 
the buffalo, like the ocean beating upon a distant 
coast. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE BUFFALO CAMP, 

No one in the camp was more active than Jim 
Gurney, and no one half so lazy as Ellis. Between 
these two there was a great antipathy. Ellis never 
stirred in the morning until he was compelled, but 
Jim was always on his feet before daybreak ; and this 
morning as usual the sound of his voice awakened 
the party. 

" Get up, you booby ! up with you now, you 're 
fit for nothing but eating and sleeping. Stop your 
grumbling and come out of that buffalo-robe, or I '11 
pull it off for you." 

Jim's words were interspersed with numerous 
expletives, which gave them great additional effect. 
Ellis drawled out something in a nasal tone from 
among the folds of his buffalo-robe ; then slowly dis- 
engaged himself, rose into a sitting posture, stretched 
his long arms, yawned hideously, and, finally raising 
his tall person erect, stood staring about him to all 
the four quarters of the horizon. Deslauriers's fire 
was soon blazing, and the horses and mules, loosened 
from their pickets, were feeding on the neighboring 
meadow. When we sat down to breakfast the prairie 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 415 

was still in the dusky light of morning ; and as the 
sun rose we were mounted and on our way again. 

"A white buffalo! " exclaimed Munroe. 

"I'll have that fellow," said Shaw, "if I run my 
horse to death after him." 

He threw the cover of his gun to Deslauriers and 
galloped out upon the prairie. 

" Stop, Mr. Shaw, stop ! " called out Henry Chatil- 
lon, "you'll run down your horse for nothing; it's 
only a white ox." 

But Shaw was already out of hearing. The ox, 
which had no doubt strayed away from some of the 
government wagon trains, was standing beneath some 
low hills which bounded the plain in the distance. 
Not far from him a band of veritable buffalo bulls 
were grazing; and startled at Shaw's approach, they 
all broke into a run, and went scrambling up the hill- 
sides to gain the high prairie above. One of them in 
his haste and terror involved himself in a fatal catas- 
trophe. Along the foot of the hills was a narrow 
strip of deep marshy soil, into which the bull plunged 
and hopelessly entangled himself. We all rode to 
the spot. The huge carcass was half sunk in the 
mud, which flowed to his very chin, and his shaggy 
mane was outspread upon the surface. As we came 
near, the bull began to struggle with convulsive 
strength ; he writhed to and fro, and in the energy of 
his fright and desperation would lift himself for a 
moment half out of the slough, while the reluctant 
mire returned a sucking sound as he strained to drag 



416 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

his limbs from its tenacious depths. We stimulated 
his exertions by getting behind him and twisting his 
tail; nothing would do. There was clearly no hope 
for him. After every effort his heaving sides were 
more deeply imbedded, and the mire almost over- 
flowed his nostrils ; he lay still at length, and look- 
ing round at us with a furious eye, seemed to resign 
himself to his fate. Ellis slowly dismounted, and, 
levelling his boasted yager, shot the old bull through 
the heart; then lazily climbed back again to his seat, 
pluming himself no doubt on having actually killed 
a buffalo. That day the invincible yager drew blood 
for the first and last time during the whole journey. 

The morning was a bright and gay one, and the 
air so clear that on the farthest horizon the outline of 
the pale blue prairie was sharply drawn against the 
sky. Shaw was in the mood for hunting ; he rode in 
advance of the party, and before long we saw a file 
of bulls galloping at full speed upon a green swell of 
the prairie at some distance in front. Shaw came 
scouring along behind them, arrayed in his red shirt, 
which looked very well in the distance; he gained 
fast on the fugitives, and as the foremost bull was 
disappearing behind the summit of the swell, we saw 
him in the act of assailing the hindmost; a smoke 
sprang from the muzzle of his gun and floated away 
before the wind like a little white cloud; the bull 
turned upon him, and just then the rising ground 
concealed them both from view. 

We were moving forward until about noon, when 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 417 

we stopped by the side of the Arkansas. At that 
moment Shaw appeared riding slowly down the side 
of a distant hill ; his horse was tired and jaded, and 
when he threw his saddle upon the ground, I observed 
that the tails of two bulls were dangling behind it. 
No sooner were the horses turned loose to feed than 
Henry, asking Munroe to go with him, took his rifle 
and walked quietly away. Shaw, Tete Rouge, and 
I sat down by the side of the cart to discuss the dinner 
which Deslauriers placed before us, and we had 
scarcely finished when we saw Munroe walking 
towards us along the river-bank. Henry, he said, 
had killed four fat cows, and had sent him back for 
horses to bring in the meat. Shaw took a horse for 
himself and another for Henry, and he and Munroe 
left the camp together. After a short absence all 
three of them came back, their horses loaded with 
the choicest parts of the meat. We kept two of the 
cows for ourselves, and gave the others to Munroe 
and his companions. Deslauriers seated himself on 
the grass before the pile of meat, and worked indus- 
triously for some time to cut it into thin broad sheets 
for drying, an art in which he had all the skill of an 
Indian squaw. Long before night, cords of raw hide 
were stretched around the camp, and the meat was 
hung upon them to dry in the sunshine and pure air 
of the prairie. Our California companions were less 
successful at the work; but they accomplished it after 
their own fashion, and their side of the camp was 
soon garnished in the same manner as our own. 

27 



418 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

We meant to remain at this place long enough to 
prepare provisions for our journey to the frontier, 
which, as we supposed, might occupy about a month. 
Had the distance been twice as great and the party 
ten times as large, the rifle of Henry Chatillon would 
have supplied meat enough for the whole within two 
days; we were obliged to remain, however, until it 
should be dry enough for transportation; so we 
pitched our tent and made other arrangements for a 
permanent camp. The California men, who had no 
such shelter, contented themselves with arranging 
their packs on the grass around their fire. In the 
mean time we had nothing to do but amuse ourselves. 
Our tent was within a rod of the river, if the broad 
sand-beds, with a scanty stream of water coursing 
here and there along their surface, deserve to be 
dignified with the name of river. The vast flat plains 
on either side were almost on a level with the sand- 
beds, and they were bounded in the distance by low, 
monotonous hills, parallel to the course of the stream. 
All was one expanse of grass ; there was no wood in 
view, except some trees and stunted bushes upon two 
islands which rose from the wet sands of the river. 
Yet far from being dull and tame, the scene was 
often a wild and animated one ; for twice a day, at 
sunrise and at noon, the buffalo came issuing from 
the hills, slowly advancing in their grave processions 
to drink at the river. All our amusements were to 
be at their expense. An old buffalo bull is a brute 
of unparalleled ugliness. At first sight of him every 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 419 

feeling of pity vanishes. Tlie cows are mucli smaller 
and of a gentler appearance, as becomes their sex. 
While in this camp we forbore to attack them, leav- 
ing to Henry Chatillon, who could better judge their 
quality, the task of killing such as we wanted for 
use ; but against the bulls we waged an unrelenting 
war. Thousands of them might be slaughtered Avith- 
out causing any detriment to the species, for their 
numbers greatly exceed those of the cows ; it is the 
hides of the latter alone which are used for the pur- 
poses of commerce and for making the lodges of the 
Indians ; and the destruction among them is therefore 
greatl}^ disproportionate. 

Our horses were tired, and we now usually hunted 
on foot. While we were lying on the grass after 
dinner, smoking, talking, or laughing at Tete Rouge, 
one of us would look up and observe, far out on the 
plains beyond the river, certain black objects slowly 
approaching. He would inhale a parting whiff from 
the pipe, then rising lazily, take his rifle, which 
leaned against the cart, throw over his shoulder the 
strap of his pouch and powder-horn, and with his 
moccasons in his hand, walk across the sand towards 
the opposite side of the river. This was very easy ; 
for though the sands were about a quarter of a mile 
wide, the water was nowhere more than two feet 
deep. The farther bank was about four or five feet 
high, and quite perpendicular, being cut away by the 
water in spring. Tall grass grew along its edge. 
Putting it aside with his hand, and cautiously look- 



420 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ing through it, the hunter can discern the huge 
shaggy back of the bull slowly swaying to and fro, 
as, with his clumsy, swinging gait, he advances 
towards the water. The buffalo have regular paths 
by which they come down to drink. Seeing at a 
oflance alongf which of these his intended victim is 
moving, the hunter crouches under the bank within 
fifteen or twenty yards, it may be, of the point where 
the path enters the river. Here he sits down quietly 
on the sand. Listening intently, he hears the heav}", 
monotonous tread of the approaching bull. The 
moment after, he sees a motion among the long weeds 
and grass just at the spot where the path is channelled 
through the bank. An enormous black head is 
thrust out, the horns just visible amid the mass of 
tangled mane. Half sliding, half plunging, down 
comes the buffalo upon the river-bed below. He 
steps out in full sight upon the sands. Just before 
him a runnel of water is gliding, and he bends his 
head to drink. You may hear the water as it gurgles 
down his capacious throat. He raises his head, and 
the drops trickle from his wet beard. He stands 
with an air of stupid abstraction, unconscious of the 
lurking danger. Noiselessly the hunter cocks his 
rifle. As he sits upon the sand, his knee is raised, 
and his elbow rests upon it, that he may level his 
heavy weapon with a steadier aim. The stock is at 
his shoulder; his eye ranges along the barrel. Still 
he is in no haste to fire. The bull, with slow deliber- 
ation, begins his march over the sands to the other 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 421 

side. He advances his foreleg, and exposes to view 
a small spot, denuded of hair, just behind the point 
of his shoulder ; upon this the hunter brings the sight 
of his rifle to bear; lightly and delicately his finger 
presses the hair-trigger. The spiteful crack of the 
rifle responds to his touch, and instantly in the middle 
of the bare spot appears a small red dot. The buffalo 
shivers; death has overtaken him, he cannot tell 
from whence ; still he does not fall, but walks heavily 
forward, as if nothing had happened. Yet before he 
has gone far out upon the sand, you see him stop ; he 
totters ; his knees bend under him, and his head sinks 
forward to the ground. Then his whole vast bulk 
sways to one side; he rolls over on the sand, and 
dies with a scarcely perceptible struggle. / 

Waylaying the buffalo in this manner, aiid shoot- 
ing them as they come to water, is the easiest method 
of hunting them. They may also be approached by 
crawling up ravines or behind hills, or even over the 
open prairie. This is often surprisingly easy; but at 
other times it requires the utmost skill of the most 
experienced hunter. Henry Chatillon was a man of 
extraordinary strength and hardihood; but I have 
seen him return to camp quite exhausted with his 
efforts, his limbs scratched and wounded, and his 
buckskin dress stuck full of the thorns of the prickly- 
pear, among which he had been crawling. Some- 
times he would lie flat upon his face, and drag himself 
along in this position for many rods together. 

On the second day of our stay at this place, Henry 



422 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

went out for an afternoon hunt. Shaw and I re- 
mained in camp, until, olDserving some bulls approach- 
ing the water upon the other side of the river, we 
crossed over to attack them. They were so near, how- 
ever, that before we could get under cover of the bank 
our appearance as we walked over the sands alarmed 
them. Turning round before coming within gun-shot, 
they began to move off to the right in a direction par- 
allel to the river. I climbed up the bank and ran 
after them. They were walking swiftly, and before 
I could come within gun-shot distance the}' slowly 
wheeled about and faced me. Before they had turned 
far enough to see ine I had fallen flat on my face. 
For a moment they stood and stared at the strange 
object upon the grass ; then turning away, again they 
walked on as before ; and I, rising immediately, ran 
once more in pursuit. Again they wheeled about, 
and again I fell prostrate. Repeating this three or 
four times, I came at length within a hundred yards 
of the fugitives, and as I saw them turning again, I 
sat down and levelled my rifle. The one in the centre 
was the largest I had ever seen. I shot him behind 
the shoulder. His two companions ran off. He 
attempted to follow, but soon came to a stand, and at 
length lay down as quietly as an ox chewing the cud. 
Cautiously approaching him, I saw b}^ his dull and 
jelly-like eye that he was dead. 

When I began the chase, the prairie was almost 
tenantless ; but a great multitude of buffalo had sud- 
denly thronged upon it, and looking up I saw within 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 423 

fifty rods a heavy, dark column stretching to the 
right and left as far as I could see. I walked towards 
them. My approach did not alarm them in the least. 
The column itself consisted almost entirely of cows 
and calves, but a great many old bulls were ranging 
about the prairie on its flank, and as I drew near they 
faced towards me with such a grim and ferocious 
look that I thought it best to proceed no farther. 
Indeed, I was already within close rifle-shot of the 
column, and I sat down on the ground to watch their 
movements. Sometimes the whole would stand still, 
their heads all one way; then they would trot for- 
ward, as if by a common impulse, their hoofs and 
horns clattering together as they moved. I soon 
began to hear at a distance on the left the sharp 
reports of a rifle, again and again repeated ; and not 
long after, dull and heavy sounds succeeded, which I 
recognized as the familiar voice of Shaw's double- 
barrelled gun. When Henry's rifle was at work 
there was always meat to be brought in. I went 
back across the river for a horse, and, returning, 
reached the spot where the hunters were standing. 
The buffalo were visible on the distant prairie. The 
living had retreated from the ground, but ten or 
twelve carcasses were scattered in various directions. 
Henry, knife in hand, was stooping over a dead 
cow, cutting away the best and fattest of the meat. 

When Shaw left me he had walked down for some 
distance under the river-bank to find another bull. 
At length he saw the plains covered with the host of 



424 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

buffalo, and soon after lieard the crack of Henry's 
rifle. Ascending the bank, he crawled through the 
grass, which for a rod or two from the river was very 
high and rank. He had not crawled far before to 
his astonishment he saw Henry standing erect upon 
the prairie, almost surrounded by the buft'alo. Henry 
was in his element. Quite unconscious that any one 
was looking at him, he stood at the full height of his 
tall figure, one hand resting upon his side, and the 
other arm leaning carelessly on the muzzle of his 
rifle. His eye was ranging over the singular assem- 
blage around him. Now and then he would select 
such a cow as suited him, level his rifle, and shoot 
her dead; then quietly reloading, he would resume 
his former position. The buffalo seemed no more to 
regard his presence than if he were one of them- 
selves ; the bulls were bellowing and butting at each 
other, or rolling about in the dust. A group of 
buffalo would gather about the carcass of a dead 
cow, snuffing at her wounds; and sometimes they 
would come behind those that had not yet fallen, and 
endeavor to push them from the spot. Now and 
then some old bull would face towards Henry with 
an air of stupid amazement, but none seemed inclined 
to attack or fly from him. For some time Shaw lay 
among the grass, lookiEg in surprise at this extraor- 
dinary sight; at length he crawled cautiously for- 
ward, and spoke in a low voice to Henry, who told 
him to rise and come on. Still the buffalo showed 
no sign of fear; they remained gathered about their 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 425 

dead companions. Heniy had already killed as many 
cows as we wanted for use, and Shaw, kneeling 
behind one of the carcasses, shot five bulls before the 
rest thought it necessary to disperse. 

The frequent stupidity and infatuation of the 
buffalo seems the more remarkable from the contrast 
it offers to their wildness and wariness at other times. 
Henry knew all their peculiarities; he had studied 
them as a scholar studies his books, and derived 
quite as much pleasure from the occupation. The 
buffalo were a kind of companions to him, and, as 
he said, he never felt alone when they were about 
him. He took great pride in his skill in hunting. 
He was one of the most modest of men ; yet in the 
simplicity and frankness of his character, it was clear 
that he looked upon his pre-eminence in this respect 
as a thing too palpable and well established to be 
disputed. But whatever may have been his estimate 
of his own skill, it was rather below than above that 
which others placed upon it. The only time that I 
ever saw a shade of scorn darken his face was when 
two volunteer soldiers, who had just killed a buffalo 
for the fu'st time, undertook to instruct him as to the 
best method of " approaching." Henry always seemed 
to think that he had a sort of prescriptive right to 
the buffalo, and to look upon them as something 
belonging to himself. Nothing excited his indigna- 
tion so much as any wanton destruction committed 
among the cows, and in his view shooting a calf was 
a cardinal sin. 



426 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Heniy Chatillon and Tete Rouge were of the same 
age; that is, about thirty. Henry was twice as 
large, and about six times as strong as T6te Rouge. 
Henry's face was roughened by winds and storms; 
Tete Rouge's was bloated by sherry-cobblers and 
brandy-toddy. Henry talked of Indians and buffalo ; 
Tete Rouge of theatres and oyster-cellars. Henry 
had led a life of hardship and privation ; Tgte Rouge 
never had a whim which he would not gratify at the 
first moment he was able. Henry moreover was the 
most disinterested man I ever saw; while Tete 
Rouge, though equally good-natured in his way, 
cared for nobody but himself. Yet we would not 
have lost him on any account; he served the purpose 
of a jester in a feudal castle ; our camp would have 
been lifeless without him. For the past week he had 
fattened in a most amazing manner; and, indeed, 
this was not at all surprising, since his appetite was 
inordinate. He was eating from morning till night; 
half the time he would be at work cooking some 
private repast for himself, and he paid a visit to the 
coffee-pot eight or ten times a day. His rueful and 
disconsolate face became jovial and rubicund, his eyes 
stood out like a lobster's, and his spirits, which 
before were sunk to the depths of despondenc}', were 
now elated in proportion; all day he was singing, 
whistling, laughing, and telling stories. Being mor- 
tally afraid of Jim Gurney, he kept close in the 
neighborhood of our tent. As he had seen an abun- 
dance of low fast life, and had a considerable fund of 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 427 

humor, his anecdotes were extremely amusing, espe- 
cially since he never hesitated to place himself in a 
ludicrous point of view, provided he could raise a 
laugh by doing so. Tete Rouge, however, was some- 
times rather troublesome ; he had an inveterate habit 
of pilfering provisions at all times of the day. He 
set ridicule at defiance, and would never have given 
over his tricks, even if they had drawn upon him the 
scorn of the whole j)arty. Now and then, indeed, 
something worse than laughter fell to his share ; on 
these occasions he would exhibit much contrition, 
but half an hour after we would generally observe 
him stealing round to the box at the back of the cart, 
and slyly making off with the provisions which 
Deslauriers had laid by for supper. He was fond of 
smoking ; but having no tobacco of his own, we used 
to provide him with as much as he wanted, a small 
piece at a time. At first we gave him half a pound 
together ; but this experiment proved an entire failure, 
for he invariably lost not only the tobacco, but the 
knife intrusted to him for cutting it, and a few 
minutes after he would come to us with many apolo- 
gies and beg for more. 

We had been two days at this camp, and some of 
the meat was nearly fit for transportation, when a 
storm came suddenly upon us. About sunset the 
whole sky grew as black as ink, and the long grass 
at the edge of the river bent and rose mournfully 
with the first gusts of the approaching hurricane. 
Munroe and his two companions brought their guns 



428 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and placed them under cover of our tent. Having 
no shelter for themselves, they built a fire of drift- 
wood that might have defied a cataract, and, wrapped 
in their buffalo-robes, sat on the ground around it to 
bide the fury of the storm. Deslauriers ensconced 
himself under the cover of the cart. Shaw and I, 
together with Henry and Tete Rouge, crowded into 
the little tent; but first of all the dried meat was 
piled together, and well protected by buffalo-robes 
pinned firmly to the ground. About nine o'clock 
the storm broke amid absolute darkness; it blew a 
gale, and torrents of rain roared over the boundless 
expanse of open prairie. Our tent was filled with 
mist and spray beating through the canvas, and 
saturating everything within. We could only dis- 
tinguish each other at short intervals by the dazzling 
flashes of lightning, which displayed the whole waste 
around us with its momentary glare. We had our 
fears for the tent ; but for an hour or two it stood 
fast, until at length the cap gave way before a furious 
blast ; the pole tore through the top, and in an in- 
stant we were half suffocated by the cold and drip- 
ping folds of the canvas, which fell down upon us. 
Seizing upon our guns, we placed them erect, in 
order to lift the saturated cloth above our heads. In 
this agreeable situation, involved among wet blankets 
and buffalo-robes, we spent several hours of the 
night, during which the storm would not abate for 
a moment, but pelted down with merciless fury. 
Before long the water gathered beneath us in a pool 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 429 

two or three inches deep ; so that for a considerable 
part of the night we were partially immersed in a 
cold bath. In spite of all this, Tete Rouge's flow 
of spirits did not fail him ; he laughed, whistled, and 
sang in defiance of the storm, and that night paid 
off the long arrears of ridicule which he owed us. 
While we lay in silence, enduring the infliction with 
what philosophy we could muster, Tete Rouge, who 
was intoxicated with animal spirits, cracked jokes at 
our expense by the hour together. At about three 
o'clock in the morning, preferring " the tyranny of 
the open night " to such a wretched shelter, we 
crawled out from beneath the fallen canvas. The 
wind had abated, but the rain fell steadily. The fire 
of the California men still blazed amid the darkness, 
and we joined them as they sat around it. We made 
ready some hot coffee by way of refreshment; but 
when some of the party sought to replenish their 
cups, it was found that Tete Rouge, having disposed 
of his own share, had privately abstracted the coffee- 
pot and drunk the rest of the contents out of the 
spout. 

In the morning, to our great joy, an unclouded 
sun rose upon the prairie. M^e presented a rather 
laughable appearance, for the cold and clammy buck- 
skin, saturated with water, clung fast to our limbs. 
The light wind and warm sunshine soon dried it 
again, and then we were all encased in armor of 
intolerable stiffness. Roaming all day over the 
prairie and shooting two or three bulls, were scarcely 



430 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

enough to restore the stiffened leather to its usual 
pliancy. 

Besides Henr}^ Chatillon, Shaw and I were the 
only hunters in the party. Munroe this morning 
made an attempt to run a buffalo, but his horse could 
not come uj) to the game. Shaw went out with him, 
and being better mounted, soon found himself in the 
midst of the herd. Seeing nothing but cows and 
calves around him, he checked his horse. An old 
bull came galloping on the open prairie at some dis- 
tance behind, and turning, Shaw rode across his 
path, levelling his gun as he passed, and shooting 
him through the shoulder into the heart. 

A great flock of buzzards was usually soaring about 
a few trees that stood on the island just below our 
camp. Throughout the whole of yesterday we had 
noticed an eagle among them; to-day he was still 
there ; and Tete Rouge, declaring that he would kill 
the bird of America, borrowed Deslauriers's gun and 
set out on his unpatriotic mission. As might have 
been expected, the eagle suffered no harm at his 
hands. He soon returned, saying that he could not 
find him, but had shot a buzzard instead. Being 
required to produce the bird in proof of his assertion, 
he said he believed that he was not quite dead, but 
he must be hurt, from the swiftness with which he 
flew off. 

"If you want," said Tete Rouge, "I'll go and 
get one of his feathers ; I knocked off plenty of them 
when I shot him." 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 431 

Just opposite our canii), was another island covered 
with bushes, and behind it was a deep pool of water, 
while two or three considerable streams coursed over 
the sand not far off. I was bathing at this place in 
the afternoon when a white wolf, larger than the larg- 
est Newfoundland dog, ran out from behind the point 
of the island, and galloped leisurely over the sand 
not half a stone's-throw distant. I could plainly 
see his red eyes and the bristles about his snout ; he 
was an ugly scoundrel, with a bushy tail, a large 
head, and a most repulsive countenance. Having 
neither rifle to shoot nor stone to pelt him with, I 
was looking after some missile for his benefit, when 
the report of a gun came from the camp, and the ball 
threw up the sand just beyond him; at this he gave 
a slight jump, and stretched away so swiftly that he 
soon dwindled into a mere speck on the distant sand- 
beds. The number of carcasses that by this time 
were lying about the neighboring prairie summoned 
the wolves from every quarter ; the spot where Shaw 
and Henry had hunted together soon became their 
favorite resort, for here about a dozen dead buffalo 
were fermenting under the hot sun. I used often 
to go over the river and watch them at their meal. 
By lying under the bank it was easy to get a full 
view of them. There were three different kinds: 
the white wolves and the gray wolves, both very- 
large, and besides these the sm.all prairie wolves, not 
much bigger than spaniels. Thej^- would howl and 
fight in a crowd around a single carcass, yet they 



432 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

were so watchful, and their senses so acute, that I 
never was able to crawl within a fair shooting dis- 
tance; whenever I attempted it, they would all 
scatter at once and glide silently away through the 
tall grass. The air above this spot was always full 
of turkey-buzzards or black vultures; whenever the 
wolves left a carcass they would descend upon it, 
and cover it so densely that a rifle bullet shot at 
random among the gormandizing crowd would gen- 
erally strike down two or three of them. These birds 
would often sail by scores just above our camp, their 
broad black wings seeming half transparent as they 
expanded them against the bright sky. The wolves 
and the buzzards thickened about us every hour, and 
two or three eagles also came to the feast. I killed 
a bull within rifle-shot of the camp ; that night the 
wolves made a fearful howling close at hand, and in 
the morning the carcass was completely hollowed out 
by these voracious feeders. 

After remaining four days at this camp we pre- 
pared to leave it. We had for our own part about 
five hundred pounds of dried meat, and the California 
men had prepared some three hundred more; this 
consisted of the fattest and choicest parts of eight or 
nine cows, a small quantity only being taken from 
each, and the rest abandoned to the wolves. The 
pack animals were laden, the horses saddled, and 
the mules harnessed to the cart. Even Tete Rouge 
was ready at last, and slowly moving from the 
ground, we resumed our journey eastward. When 



THE BUFFALO CAMP, 433 

we had advanced about a mile, Shaw missed a valu- 
able hunting-knife, and turned back in search of it, 
thinking that he had left it at the camp. The day 
was dark and gloomy. The ashes of the fires were 
still smoking by the river-side; the grass around 
them was trampled down by men and horses, and 
strewn with all the litter of a camp. Our departure 
had been a gathering signal to the birds and beasts 
of prey. Scores of wolves were prowling about the 
smouldering fires, while multitudes were roaming 
over the neighboring prairie; they all fled as Shaw 
approached, some running over the sand-beds and 
some over the grassy plains. Tlie vultures in great 
clouds were soaring overhead, and the dead bull near 
the camp was completely blackened by the flock that 
had alighted upon it ; they flapped their broad wings, 
and stretched upwards their crested heads and long 
skinny necks, fearing to remain, yet reluctant to 
leave their disgusting feast. As he searched about 
the fires he saw the wolves seated on the hills wait- 
ing for his departure. Having looked in vain for his 
knife, he mounted again, and left the wolves and the 
vultures to banquet undisturbed. 



28 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 

In the summer of 1846, the wild and lonely banks 
of the Upper Arkansas beheld for the first time the 
passage of an army. General Kearney, on his march 
to Santa F^, adopted this route in preference to the 
old trail of the Cimarron. When we were on the 
Arkansas, the main body of the troops had already 
passed on; Price's Missouri regiment, however, was 
still on its way, having left the frontier much later 
than the rest; and about this time we began to meet 
one or two companies at a time moving along the 
trail. No men ever embarked upon a military expe- 
dition with a greater love for the work before them 
than the Missourians ; but if discipline and subordi- 
nation are the criterion of merit, they were worthless 
soldiers indeed. Yet when their exploits have rung 
through all America, it would be absurd to deny that 
they were excellent irregular troops. Their victories 
were gained in the teeth of every established prece- 
dent of warfare ; and were owing to a combination of 
military qualities in the men themselves. Doniphan's 
regiment marched through New Mexico more like a 
band of free companions than like the paid soldiers of 



DOWN THE ARKAXSAS. 435 

a modern government. When General Ta3'lor com- 
plimented him on his success at Sacramento and else- 
where, the colonel's reply very well illustrates the 
relations which subsisted between the officers and 
men of his command. 

" I don't know anything of the manoeuvres. The 
boys kept coming to me, to let them charge; and 
when I saw a good opportunity, I told them they 
might go. They were off like a shot, and that 's 
all I know about it." 

The backwoods lawyer was better fitted to con- 
ciliate the good-will than to command the obedience 
of his men. There were many serving under him 
who both from character and education could better 
have held command than he. 

At the battle of Sacramento his frontiersmen fought 
under every disadvantage. The Mexicans had chosen 
their position ; they were drawn up across the valley 
that led to their native city of Chihuahua; their 
whole front was covered by intrenchments and de- 
fended by batteries, and they outnumbered the in- 
vaders five to one. An eagle flew over the Americans, 
and a deep murmur rose along their lines. The 
enemy's batteries opened ; long they remained under 
fire, but when at length the word was given, they 
shouted and ran forward. In one of the divisions, 
when midway to the enemy a drunken officer ordered 
a halt ; the exasperated men hesitated to obey. 

"Forward, boys! " cried a private from the ranks; 
and the Americans rushed like tigers upon the 



436 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

enemy. Four hundred jMexicans were slain upon t}i6 
spot, and the rest fled, scattering over the plain like 
sheep. The standards, cannon, and baggage were 
taken, and among the rest a wagon laden with cords, 
which the Mexicans, in the fulness of their confi- 
dence, had made ready for tying the American 
prisoners. 

Doniphan's volunteers, who gained this victory, 
passed up with the main arm}'; hut Price's soldiers, 
whom we now met, Avere men from the same neigh- 
borhood, precisely similar in character, manners, and 
appearance. One morning, as we were descending 
upon a wide meadow, where we meant to rest for an 
hour or two, we saw a body of horsemen approaching 
at a distance. In order to find water, we were obliged 
to turn aside to the river-bank, a full half-mile from 
the trail. Here we put up a kind of awning, and 
spreading buffalo-robes on the ground, Shaw and I 
sat down to smoke. 

"We are going to catch it now," said Shaw; "look 
at those fellows; there '11 be no peace for us here." 

And in truth about half the volunteers had strag- 
gled away from the line of march, and were riding 
over the meadow towards us. 

"How are you?" said the first who came up, 
alighting from his horse and throwing himself upon 
the ground. The rest followed close, and a score of 
them soon gathered about us, some lying at full 
length and some sitting on horseback. They all 
belonged to a company raised in St. Louis. There 



DOW'N THE ARKANSAS. 437 

were some ruffian faces among them, and some 
haggard with debauchery; but on the whole they 
were extremely good-looking men, superior beyond 
measure to the ordinary rank and file of an army. 
Except that they were booted to the knees, they wore 
their belts and military trappings over the ordinary 
di-ess of citizens. Besides their swords and holster 
pistols, they carried slung from their saddles the 
excellent Springfield carbines, loaded at the breech. 
They inquired the character of our party, and were 
anxious to know the prospect of killing bufCalo, and 
the chance that their horses v/ould stand the journey 
to Santa Fe. All this was well enough, but a moment 
after a worse visitation came upon us. 

" How are you, strangers ? whar are you going and 
whar are you from?" said a fellow, who came trot- 
ting up with an old straw hat on his head. He was 
dressed in the coarsest brown homespun cloth. His 
face was rather sallow from fever-and-ague, and his 
tall figure, though strong and sinewy, had a lean, 
angular look, which, together with his boorish seat 
on horseback, gave him an appearance anything but 
graceful. More of the same stamp were close behind 
him. Their company was raised in one of the fron- 
tier counties, and we soon had abundant evidence of 
their rustic breeding ; they came crowding round by 
scores, pushing between our first visitors, and staring 
at us with unabashed faces. 

" Are you the captain ? " asked one fellow. 

"What's your business out here?" asked another. 



488 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"Whar do you live when you "re to home?" said 
a third. 

"I reckon you 're traders," surmised a fourth; and 
to crown the whole, one of them came confidentially 
to my side and inquired in a low voice, " What 's 
your partner's name?" 

As each new-comer repeated the same questions, 
the nuisance became intolerable. Our military visi- 
tors were soon disgusted at the concise nature of our 
replies, and we could overhear them muttering 
curses. While we sat smoking, not in the best imagi- 
nable humor, Tete Rouge's tongue was not idle. 
He never forgot his military character, and during 
the whole interview he was incessantly busy among 
his fellow-soldiers. At length we placed him on the 
ground before us, and told him that he might play 
the part of spokesman. Tete Rouge was delighted, 
and we soon had the satisfaction of seeing him gabble 
at such a rate that the torrent of questions was in a 
great measure diverted from us. A little while 
after, a cannon with four horses came lumbering up 
behind the crowd ; and the driver, who was perched 
on one of the animals, stretching his neck so as to 
look over the rest of the men, called out, — 

" Whar are you from, and what 's your business ? " 

The captain of one of the companies was among 
our visitors, drawn l)y the same curiosity that had 
attracted his men. Unless their faces belied them, 
not a few in the crowd might with great advantage 
have changed ])laces with their commander. 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 439 

"Well, men," said he, lazily, rising from the 
ground where he had been lounging, " it 's getting 
late; I reckon we 'd better be moving." 

"I shan't start yet, anyhow," said one fellow, who 
was lying half asleep with his head resting on his 
arm. 

" Don't be in a hurry, captain, " added the lieutenant. 

" Well, have it your own way ; we '11 wait a while 
longer," replied the obsequious commander. 

At length, however, our visitors went straggling 
away as they had come, and we, to our great relief, 
were left alone again. 

No one was more relieved than Deslauriers by the 
departure of the volunteers ; for dinner was getting 
colder every moment. He spread a well-whitened 
buffalo-hide upon the grass, placed in the middle the 
juicy hump of a fat cow, ranged around it the tin 
plates and cups, and then announced that all was 
ready. Tete Rouge, with his usual alacrity on such 
occasions, was the first to take his seat. In his 
former capacity of steamboat clerk, he had learned 
to prefix the honorary Mister to everybody's name, 
whether of high or low degree ; so Jim Gurney was 
Mr. Gurney, Henry was Mr. Henry, and even Des- 
lauriers, for the first time in his life, heard himself 
addressed as Mr. Deslauriers. This did not prevent 
his conceiving a violent enmity against Tete Rouge, 
who, in his futile though praiseworthy attempts to 
make himself useful, used always to intermeddle with 
cooking the dinners. Deslauriers's disposition knew 



440 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

no medium between smiles and sunshine and a down- 
right tornado of wrath; he said nothing to Tete 
Rouge, but his wrongs rankled in his breast. Tete 
Rouge had taken his place at dinner; it was his 
happiest moment; he sat enveloped in the old buffalo- 
coat, sleeves turned up in preparation for the work, 
and his short legs crossed on the grass before him ; 
he had a cup of coffee by liis side and his knife ready 
in his hand, and while he looked upon the fat hump- 
ribs, his eyes dilated with anticipation. Deslauriers 
sat opposite to him, and the rest of us by this time 
had taken our seats. 

"How is this, Deslauriers? You haven't given 
us bread enough." 

At this Deslauriers 's placid face flew into a par- 
oxysm of contortions. He grinned with wrath, chat- 
tered, gesticulated, and hurled forth a volley of 
incoherent words in broken English at the astonished 
Tete Rouge. It was just possible to make out that 
he was accusing him of having stolen and eaten four 
large cakes v/hich had been laid by for dinner. Tete 
Rouge, confounded at this sudden attack, stared at 
his assailant for a moment in dumb amazement, with 
mouth and eyes wide open. At last he found speech, 
and protested that the accusation vras false; and that 
he could not conceive how he had offended INIr. 
Deslauriers, or provoked him to use such ungentle- 
manly expressions. The tempest of words raged 
with such fury that nothing else could be heard. 
But Tete Rouge, from his greater command of Eng- 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 441 

lish, had a manifest advantage over Deslauriers, who, 
after sputtering and grimacing for a while, found his 
words quite inadequate to the expression of his 
wrath. He jumped up and vanished, jerking out 
between liis teeth one furious sacre enfant de garce ! 
a Canadian title of honor, made doubly emphatic by 
being usually applied together with a cut of the whip 
to refractory mules and horses. 

The next morning we saw an old buffalo bull escort- 
ing his cow with two small calves over the prairie. 
Close behind came four or five large white wolves, 
sneaking stealthily through the long meadow-grass, 
and watching for the moment when one of the children 
should chance to lag behind his parents. The old 
bull kept well on his guard, and faced about now and 
then to keep the prowling ruffians at a distance. 

As Ave approached our iiooning-place, we saw five 
or six buffalo standing at the summit of a tall bluff. 
Trotting forward to the spot where we meant to stop, 
I flung off my saddle and turned my horse loose. 
By making a circuit under cover of some rising 
ground, I reached the foot of the bluff unnoticed, 
and climbed up its steep side. Lying under the brow 
of the declivity, I prepared to fire at the buffalo, who 
stood on the flat surface above, not five yards distant. 
The gleaming rifle-barrel levelled over the edge 
caught their notice, and they turned and ran. Close 
as they were, it was impossible to kill them when in 
that position, and stepping upon the summit, I pur- 
sued them over the high arid table-land. It was 



442 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

extremely rugged and broken ; a great sandy ravine 
was channelled through it, with smaller ravines enter- 
ing on each side, like tributary streams. The buffalo 
scattered, and I soon lost sight of most of them as 
they scuttled away through the sandy chasms ; a bull 
and a cow alone kept in view. For a while they ran 
along the edge of the great ravine, appearing and 
disappearing as they dived into some chasm and again 
emerged from it. At last they stretched out upon 
the broad prairie, — a plain nearly flat and almost 
devoid of verdure, for every short grass-blade was 
dried and shrivelled by the glaring sun. Now and 
then the old bull would face towards me ; whenever 
he did so I fell to the ground and lay motionless. In 
this manner I chased them for about two miles, until 
at length I heard in front a deep, hoarse bellowing. 
A moment after, a band of about a hundred bulls, 
before hidden by a slight swell of the plain, came at 
once into view. The fugitives ran towards them. 
Instead of mingling with the band, as I expected, 
they passed directly through, and continued their 
flight. At this I gave up the chase, crawled to 
within gun-shot of the bulls, and sat down on the 
ground to watch them. My presence did not disturb 
them in the least. They were not feeding, for there 
was nothing to eat; but they seemed to have chosen 
the parched and scorching desert as their play-ground. 
Some were rolling on the ground amid a cloud of 
dust; others, with a hoarse rumbling bellow, were 
butting their large heads together, while many stood 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 443 

motionless, as if quite inanimate. Except their 
monstrous growth of tangled grizzly mane, they had 
no hair; for their old coat had fallen off in the 
spring, and their new one had not as yet appeared. 
Sometimes an old bull would step forward, and gaze 
at me with a grim and stupid countenance ; then he 
would turn and butt his next neighbor; then he 
would lie down and roll over in the dust, kicking his 
hoofs in the air. When satisfied with this amuse- 
ment, he would jerk his head and shoulders upward, 
and resting on his forelegs, stare at me in this posi- 
tion, half blinded by his mane, and his face covered 
with dirt; then up he would spring upon all fours, 
shake his dusty sides, turn half round, and stand 
with his beard touching the ground, in an attitude of 
profound abstraction, as if reflecting on his puerile 
conduct. "You are too ugly to live," thought I; 
and aiming at the ugliest, I shot three of them in 
succession. The rest were not at all discomposed at 
this ; they kept on bellowing, butting, and rolling on 
the ground as before. Henry Chatillon always cau- 
tioned us to keep perfectly quiet in the presence of a 
wounded buffalo, for any movement is apt to excite 
him to make an attack ; so I sat still upon the ground, 
loading and filing with as little motion as possible. 
While I was thus employed, a spectator made his 
appearance: a little antelope came running up to 
within fifty yards; and there it stood, its slender 
neck arched, its small horns thrown back, and its 
large dark eyes gazing on me with a look of eager 



444 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

curiosity. By the side of the shaggy and brutish 
monsters before me, it seemed like some lovely young 
girl in a den of robbers or a nest of bearded pirates. 
The buffalo looked uglier than ever. "Here goes 
for another of you," thought I, feeling in my pouch 
for a percussion-cap. Not a percussion-cap was there. 
My good rifle was useless as an old iron bar. One of 
the wounded bulls had not yet fallen, and I waited 
for some time, hoping every moment that his strength 
would fail him. He still stood firm, looking grimly 
at me, and, disregarding Henry's advice, I rose and 
walked away. Many of the bulls turned and looked 
at me, but the wounded brute made no attack. I 
soon came upon a deep ravine which would give me 
shelter in case of emergency ; so I turned round and 
threw a stone at the bulls. They received it with 
the utmost indifference. Feeling myself insulted at 
their refusal to be frightened, I swung my hat, 
shouted, and made a show of running towards them ; 
at this they crowded together and galloped off, leav- 
ing their dead and wounded upon the field. As I 
moved towards the camp I saw the last survivor 
totter and fall dead. My speed in returiiing was 
wonderfully quickened by the reflection that the 
Pawnees were abroad, and that I was defenceless in 
case of meeting with an enemy. I saw no living- 
thing, however, except two or three squalid old bulls 
scrambling among the sand-hills that flanked the great 
ravine. When I reached camp the party were nearly 
jeady for tbe afternoon move. 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 445 

We encamped that evening at a short distance from 
the river-bank. Al)Out midnight, as we all lay asleep 
on the ground, the man nearest to me, gently reach- 
ing out his hand, touched my shoulder, and cautioned 
me at the same time not to move. It was bright 
starlight. Opening my eyes and slightly turning, I 
saw a large white wolf moving stealthily around the 
embers of our fire, with his nose close to the ground. 
Disengaging my hand from the blanket, I drew the 
cover from my rifle, which lay close at my side ; the 
motion alarmed the wolf, and with long leaps he 
bounded out of the camp. Jumping up, I fired after 
him, when he was about thirty yards distant; the 
melancholy hum of the bullet sounded far away 
through the night. At the sharp report, so suddenly 
breaking upon the stillness, all the men sprang up. 

"You 've killed him," said one of them. 

"No, I have n't," said I; "there he goes, running 
along the river." 

"Then there's two of them. Don't you see that 
one lying out yonder?" 

We went out to it, and instead of a dead white 
wolf, found the bleached skull of a buffalo. I had 
missed my mark, and, what was worse, had grossly 
violated a standing law of the prairie. When in a 
dangerous part of the country, it is considered highl}^ 
imprudent to fire a gun after encamping, lest the 
report should reach the ears of Indians. 

The horses were saddled in the morning, and the 
last man had lighted his pipe at the dying ashes of 



446 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the fire. The beaut}' of the day enlivened us all. 
Even Ellis felt its influence, and occasionally made a 
remark as we rode along, and Jim Gurney told end- 
less stories of his cruisings in the United States 
service. The buffalo were abundant, and at length a 
large band of them went running up the hills on the 
left. 

"Too good a chance to lose," said Shaw. We 
lashed our horses and galloped after them. Shaw 
killed one with each barrel of his gun. I separated 
another from the herd and shot him. The small 
bullet of the rifle-pistol strildng too far back did not 
immediately take effect, and the bull ran on with 
unabated speed. Again and again I snapped the 
remaining pistol at him. I primed it afresh three or 
four times, and each time it missed fire, for the touch- 
hole was clogged up. Returning it to the holster, I 
began to load the empty pistol, still galloping by the 
side of the bull. By this time he had grown desper- 
ate. The foam flew from his jaws and his tongue 
lolled out. Before the pistol was loaded he sj)rang 
upon me, and followed up his attack with a furious 
rush. The only alternative was to run away or be 
killed. I took to flight, and the bull, bristling with 
fury, pursued me closely. The pistol was soon 
ready, and then looking back I saw his head five or 
six yards behind my horse's tail. To fire at it would 
be useless, for a bullet flattens against the adamantine 
skull of a buffalo bull. Inclining my body to the 
left, I turned my horse in that direction as sharply as 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 447 

his speed would permit. The bull, rushing blindl}'- 
on with great force and weight, did not turn so quickly. 
As I looked back, his neck and shoulder were exposed 
to view; and, turning in the saddle, I shot a bullet 
through them obliquely into his vitals. He gave 
over the chase and soon fell to the ground. An 
English tourist represents a situation like this as one 
of imminent danger : this is a mistake ; the bull never 
pursues long, and the horse must be wretched indeed 
that cannot keep out of his way for two or three 
minutes. 

We were now come to a part of the country where 
we were bound in common prudence to use every 
possible precaution. We mounted guard at night, 
each man standing in his turn ; and no one ever slept 
without drawing his rifle close to his side or folding it 
with him in his blanket. One morning our vigilance 
was stimulated by finding traces of a large Camanche 
encampment. Fortunately for us, however, it had 
been abandoned nearly a week. On the next evening 
we found the ashes of a recent fire, which gave us at 
the time some uneasiness. At length we reached the 
Caches, a place of dangerous repute; and it had a 
most dangerous appearance, consisting of sand-hills 
everywhere broken by ravines and deep chasms. 
Here we found the grave of Swan, killed at this place, 
probably by the Pawnees, two or three weeks before. 
His remains, more than once violated by the Indians 
and the wolves, were suffered at length to remain 
undisturbed in their wild burial-place. 



448 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

For several days we met detaclied companies of 
Price's regiment. Horses would often break loose at 
night from their camps. One afternoon we picked 
up three of these stragglers quietly grazing along 
the river. After we came to camp that evening, Jim 
Gurney brought news that more of them were in 
sight. It was nearly dark, and a cold, drizzling rain 
had set in ; but we all turned out, and after an hour's 
chase nine horses were caught and brought in. One 
of them was equipped with saddle and bridle ; pistols 
were hanging at the pommel of the saddle, a carbine 
was slung at its side, and a blanket rolled up behind 
it. In the morning, as we resumed our journey, our 
cavalcade presented a much more imposing appear- 
ance than ever before. We kept on till the after- 
noon, when, far behind, three horsemen appeared on 
the horizon. Coming on at a hand-gallop, they soon 
overtook us, and claimed all the horses as belonging 
to themselves and others of their company. They 
were of course given up, very much to the mortifica- 
tion of Ellis and Jim Gurney. 

Our own horses now showed signs of fatigue, and 
we resolved to give them half a day's rest. We 
stopped at noon at a grassy spot by the river. After 
dinner Shaw and Henrj'^ went out to hunt; and while 
the men lounged about the camp, I lay down to read 
in the shadow of the cart. Looking up, I saw a bull 
grazing alone on the prairie more than a mile distant, 
and taking my rifle I walked towards him. As I 
came near, I crawled upon the ground until I ap- 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 449 

proached to within a bundled yards ; here I sat down 
upon the grass and waited till he should turn himself 
into a proper position to receive his death-wound. 
He was a grim old veteran. His loves and his battles 
were over for that season, and now, gaunt and war- 
worn, he had withdrawn from the herd to graze by 
himself and recruit his exhausted strength. He was 
miserably emaciated ; his mane was all in tatters ; his 
hide was bare and rough as an elephant's, and covered 
with dried patches of the mud in which he had been 
wallowing. He showed all his ribs whenever he 
moved. He looked like some grizzly old ruffian 
grown gray in blood and violence, and scowling on 
all the world from his misanthropic seclusion. The 
old savage looked up when I first approached, and 
gave me a fierce stare ; then he fell to grazing again 
with an air of contemptuous indifference. The 
moment after, as if suddenly recollecting himself, he 
threw up his head, faced quickly about, and to my 
amazement came at a rapid trot directly towards me. 
I was strongly impelled to get up and run, but this 
would have been very dangerous. Sitting quite still, 
I aimed, as he came on, at the thin part of the skull 
above the nose, hoping that the shot might have the 
effect of turning him. After he had passed over 
about three-quarters of the distance between us, I 
was on the point of firing, when, to my great satis- 
faction, he stopped short. I had full opportunity of 
studying his countenance ; his whole front was cov- 
ered with a huge mass of coarse matted hair, which 

29 



450 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

hung so low that nothing but his two forefeet were 
visible beneath it ; his short thick horns were blunted 
and split to the very roots in his various battles, and 
across his nose and forehead were two or three large 
white scars, which gave him a grim, and at the same 
time a whimsical, appearance. It seemed to me that 
he stood there motionless for a full quarter of an hour 
staring at me through the tangled locks of his mane. 
For my part, I remained as quiet as he, and looked 
quite as hard. I felt greatly inclined to come to 
terms with him. "My friend," thought I, "if you '11 
let me off, I '11 let you off." At length he seemed to 
have abandoned any hostile design. Very slowly and 
deliberately he began to turn about; little by little 
his side came into view, all beplastered with mud. 
It was a tempting sight. I forgot my prudent inten- 
tions, and fired my rifle ; a pistol would have served 
at that distance. The old bull spun round like a 
top, and galloped away over the prairie. He ran 
some distance, and even ascended a considerable hill, 
before he lay down and died. After shooting another 
bull among the hills, I went back to camp. 

At noon, on the fourteenth of September, a very 
large Santa F6 caravan came up. The plain was 
covered with the long files of their white-topped 
wagons, the close black carriages in which the traders 
travel and sleep, large droves of mules and horses, 
and men on horseback and on foot. They all stopped 
on the meadow near us. Our diminutive cart and 
handful of men made but an insignificant figure by 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 451 

the side of their wide and bustling camp. Trte 
Rouge went to visit them, and soon came back with 
half a dozen biscuit in one hand, and a bottle of 
brandy in the other. I inquired where he got them. 
" Oh," said Tete Rouge, " I know some of the traders. 
Dr. Dobbs is there, besides." I asked who Dr. Dobbs 
might be. "One of our St. Louis doctors," replied 
Tete Rouge. For two days past I had been severely 
attacked by the same disorder which had so greatly 
reduced my strength when at the mountains ; at this 
time I was suffering not a little from pain and weak- 
ness. Tete Rouge, in answer to my inquiries, declared 
that Dr. Dobbs was a physician of the first standing. 
Without at all believing him, I resolved to consult 
this eminent practitioner. Walking over to the camp, 
I found him lying sound asleep under one of the 
wagons. He offered in his own person but indiffer- 
ent evidence of his skill, for it was five months since 
I had seen so cadaverous a face. His hat had fallen 
off, and his yellow hair was all in disorder; one of 
his arms supplied the place of a pillow; his trousers 
were wrinkled halfway up to his knees, and he was 
covered with little bits of grass and straw upon which 
he had rolled in his uneasy slumber. A Mexican 
stood near, and I made him a sign to touch the 
doctor. Up sprang the learned Dobbs, and sitting 
upright rubbed his eyes and looked about him in 
bewilderment. I regretted the necessity of disturb- 
ing him, and said I had come to ask professional 
advice. 



452 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"Your system, sir, is in a disordered state," said 
he, solemnly, after a short examination. 

I inquired what might be the particular species of 
disorder. 

"Evidently a morbid action of the liver," replied 
the medical man; "I will give you a prescription." 

Repairing to the back of one of the covered wagons, 
he scrambled in ; for a moment I could see nothing 
of him but his boots. At length he produced a box 
which he had extracted from some dark recess within, 
and, opening it, presented me with a folded paper. 
" What is it ? " said I. " Calomel, " said the doctor. 

Under the circumstances I vv^ould have taken 
almost anything. There was not enough to do me 
much harm, and it might possibly do good; so at 
camp that night I took the poison instead of supper. 

That camp is worthy of notice. The traders warned 
us not to follow the main trail along the river, 
"unless," as one of them observed, "you want to 
have your throats cut!" The river at this place 
makes a bend; and a smaller trail, known as "the 
Ridge-path," leads directly across the prairie from 
point to point, a distance of sixty or seventy miles. 

We followed this trail, and after travelling seven 
or eight miles, came to a small stream, where we 
encamped. Our position was not chosen with much 
forethought or military skill. The water was in a 
deep hollow, with steep, high banks; on the grassy 
bottom of this hollow we picketed our horses, while 
we ourselves encamped upon the barren prairie just 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 453 

above. The opportunity was admirable either for 
driving off our horses or attacking us. After dark, 
as Tete Rouge was sitting at supper, we observed 
him pointing with a face of speechless horror over 
the shoulder of Henry, who was opposite to him. 
Aloof amid the darkness appeared a gigantic black 
apparition, solemnly swaying to and fro as it advanced 
steadily upon us. Henry, half vexed and half amused, 
jumped up, spread out his arms, and shouted. The 
invader was an old buffalo bull, who, with character- 
istic stupidity, was walking directly into camp. It 
cost some shouting and swinging of hats before we 
could bring him first to a halt and then to a rapid 
retreat. 

The moon was full and bright; but as the black 
clouds chased rapidly over it, we were at one moment 
in light and at the next in darkness. As the evening 
advanced, a thunder-storm came up and struck us 
with such violence that the tent would have been 
blown over if we had not interposed the cart to 
break the force of the wind. At length it subsided 
to a steady rain. I lay awake through nearly the 
whole night, listening to its dull patter upon the can- 
vas above. The moisture, which filled the tent and 
trickled from everything in it, did not add to tlie 
comfort of the situation. About twelve o'clock Shaw 
went out to stand guard amid the rain and pitchy 
darkness. Munroe was also on the alert. When 
about two hours had passed, Shaw came silently in, 
and, touching Henry, called to him in a low, quick 



454 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

voice to come out. "What is it?" Tasked. "In- 
dians, I believe," whispered Shaw; "but lie still; 
I'll call you if there's a fight." 

He and Henry went out together. I took the 
cover from my rifle, put a fresh percussion-cap upon 
it, and then, being in much pain, lay down again. 
In about five minutes Shaw returned. "All right," 
he said, as he lay down to sleep. Henry was now 
standing guard in his place. He told me in the 
morning the particulars of the alarm. Munroe's 
watchful eye had discovered some dark objects down 
in the hollow, among the horses, like men creeping 
on all-fours. Lying flat on their faces, he and Shaw 
crawled to the edge of the bank, and were soon con- 
vinced that these dark objects were Indians. Shaw 
silently withdrew to call Henry, and they all lay 
watching in the same position. Henry's eye is one 
of the best on the prairie. He detected after a while 
the true nature of the intruders ; they were nothing 
but wolves creeping among the horses. 

It is very singular that, when picketed near a 
camp, horses seldom show any fear of such an intru- 
sion. The wolves appear to have no other object 
than that of gnawing the trail-ropes of raw hide by 
which the animals are secured. Several times in the 
course of the journey my horse's trail-rope was bitten 
in two by these nocturnal visitors. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE SETTLEMENTS. 

The next day was extremely hot, and we rode 
from morning till night without seeing a tree, a bush, 
or a drop of water. Our horses and mules suffered 
much more than we, but as sunset approached, they 
pricked up their ears and mended their pace. Water 
was not far off. When we came to the descent of 
the broad shallow valley where it lay, an unlooked- 
for sight awaited us. The stream glistened at the 
bottom, and along its banks were pitched a multitude 
of tents, while hundreds of cattle were feeding over 
the meadows. Bodies of troops, both horse and foot, 
and long trains of wagons, with men, women, and 
children, were moving over the opposite ridge and 
descending the broad declivity before us. These 
were the Mormon battalion in thfe service of govern- 
ment, together with a considerable number of Missouri 
Volunteers. The Mormons were to be paid off in 
California, and they were allowed to bring with them 
their families and property. There was something 
very striking in the half-military, half-patriarchal 
appearance of these armed fanatics, thus on their 
way with their wives and children, to found, it 



456 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

might be, a Mormon empire in California. We were 
much more astonished than pleased at the sight 
before us. In order to find an unoccupied camping- 
ground, we were obliged to pass a quarter of a mile 
up the stream, and here we were soon beset by a 
swarm of Mormons and Missourians. The United 
States officer in command of the whole came also to 
visit us, and remained some time at our camp. 

In the morning the country was covered mth mist. 
We were always early risers, but before vv-e were 
ready, the voices of men driving in the cattle sounded 
all around us. As Ave passed above their camp, we 
saw through the obscurity that the tents were falling, 
and the ranks rapidly forming; and, mingled with 
the cries of women and children, the rolling of the 
Mormon drums and the clear blast of their trumpets 
sounded through the mist. 

From that time to the journey's end, we met almost 
every day long trains of government wagons, laden 
with stores for the troops, crawling at a snail's pace 
towards Santa F6. 

Tete Rouge had a mortal antipathy to danger, but 
one evening he achieved an adventure more perilous 
than had befallen any man in the party. The day 
after we left the Ridge-path we encamped close to 
the river, and at sunset saw a train of wagons en- 
camping on the trail, about three miles off. Though 
we saw them distinctly, our little cart, as it after- 
wards proved, entirely escaped their notice. For 
some days Tete Rouge had been longing for a dram 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 457 

of whiskey. So, resolving to improve the present 
opportunity, he mounted his horse "James," which 
he had obtained from the volunteers in exchange for 
his mule, slung his canteen over his shoulder, and 
set out in search of his favorite liquor. Some hours 
passed without his returning. We thought that he 
was lost, or perhaps that some stray Indian had 
snapped him up. While the rest fell asleep I re- 
mained on guard. Late at night a tremulous voice 
saluted me from the darkness, and Tete Rouge and 
James soon became visible, advancing towards the 
camp. Tete Rouge was in much agitation and big 
with important tidings. Sitting down on the shaft 
of the cart, he told the following story: — 

When he left the camp he had no idea, he said, 
how late it was. By the time he approached the 
wagoners it was perfectly dark ; and as he saw them 
all sitting around their fires within the circle of 
wagons, their guns laid by their sides, he thought 
he might as well give warning of his approach, in 
order to prevent a disagreeable mistake. Raising his 
voice to the highest pitch, he screamed out in pro- 
longed accents, " Camjp ahoy ! " This eccentric salu- 
tation produced anything but the desired effect. 
Hearing such hideous sounds proceeding from the 
outer darkness, the wagoners thought that the whole 
Pawnee nation were upon them. Up they sprang, 
wild with terror. Each man snatched his gun; some 
stood behind the wagons ; some threw themselves flat 
on the ground, and in an instant twenty cocked 



458 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

muskets were levelled full at the horrified Tete 
Rouge, who just then began to be visible through 
the gloom. 

" Thar they come, " cried the master wagoner ; ^' fire, 
fire, shoot that feller." 

"No, no!" screamed Tete Rouge, in an ecstasy 
of fright; "don't fire, don't; I 'm a friend, I'm an 
American citizen ! " 

"You're a friend, be you?" cried a gruff voice 
from the wagons; "then what are you yellin' out 
thar for like a wild Injun ? Come along up here if 
you 're a man." 

"Keep your guns p'inted at him," added the 
master wagoner; "maybe he's a decoy, like." 

Tete Rouge in utter bewilderment made his ap- 
proach, with the gaping muzzles of the muskets still 
before his eyes. He succeeded at last in explaining 
his true character, and the Missourians admitted him 
into camp. He got no whiskey; but as he repre- 
sented himself as a great invalid, and suffering much 
from coarse fare, they made up a contribution for 
him of rice, biscuit, and sugar from their own 
rations. 

In the morning at breakfast, Tete Rouge once more 
related this story. We hardly knew how much of it 
to believe, though after some cross-questioning we 
failed to discover any flaw in the narrative. Pass- 
ing by the wagoners' camp, they confirmed Tete 
Rouge's account in every particular. 

"I wouldn't have been in that feller's place," said 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 459 

one of them, "for the biggest heap of money in 
Missouri." 

A day or two after, we had an adventure of 
another sort with a party of wagoners. Henry and 
I rode forward to hunt. After that day there was 
no probability that we shoukl meet with buffalo, and 
we were anxious to kill one, for a supply of fresh 
meat. They were so wild that we hunted all the 
morning in vain, but at noon as we approached Cow 
Creek we saw a large band feeding near its margin. 
Cow Creek is densely lined with trees which inter- 
cept the view beyond, and it runs, as we afterwards 
found, at the bottom of a deep trench. We approached 
by riding along the bottom of a ravine. When we 
were near enough, I held the horses while Henry 
crept towards the buffalo. I saw him take his seat 
within shooting distance, prepare his rifle, and look 
about to select his victim. The death of a fat cow 
seemed certain, when suddenly a great smoke and a 
rattling volley of musketry rose from the bed of the 
creek. A score of long-legged Missourians leaped 
out from among the trees and ran after the buffalo, 
who one and all took to their heels and vanished. 
These fellows had crawled up the bed of the creek to 
within a hundred yards of the game. Never was 
there a fairer chance for a shot. They were good 
marksmen ; all cracked away at once, and yet not a 
buffalo fell. In fact, the animal is so tenacious of life 
that it requires no little knowledge of anatomy to kill 
it, and it is very seldom that a novice succeeds in his 



460 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

first attempt at approaching. The balked Missourians 
were excessively mortified, especially when Henry 
told them that if tliey had kept quiet he would have 
killed meat enough in ten minutes to feed their whole 
party. Our friends, who were at no great distance, 
hearing the fusillade, thought that the Indians had 
fired the volley for our benefit. Shaw came gallop- 
ing on to reconnoitre and learn if we were yet among 
the living. 

At Cow Creek we found the welcome novelty of 
ripe grapes and plums, which grew there in abun- 
dance. At the Little Arkansas, not much farther 
on, we saw the last buffalo, a miserable old bull, 
roaming over the prairie melancholy and alone. 

From this time forward the character of the country 
was changing every day. We had left behind us the 
great arid deserts, meagrely covered by the tufted 
buffalo-grass, with its pale green hue and its short 
shrivelled blades. The plains before us were carpeted 
with rich herbage sprinkled with flowers. In place 
of buffalo we found plenty of prairie-hens, and 
bagged them by dozens without leaving the trail. In 
three or four days we saw before us the forests and 
meadows of Council Grove. It seemed like a new 
sensation as we rode beneath the resounding arches 
of these noble woods, — ash, oak, elm, maple, and 
hickory, festooned with enormous grape-vines, purple 
with fruit. The shouts of our scattered party, and 
now and then the report of a rifle, rang through the 
breathless stillness of the forest. We rode out again 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 461 

with regret into the broad light of the open prairie. 
Little more than a hundred miles now separated us 
from the frontier settlements. The whole interven- 
ing country was a succession of green prairies, rising 
in broad swells and relieved by trees clustering like 
an oasis around some spring, or following the course 
of a stream along some fertile hollow. These are the 
prairies of the poet and the novelist. We had left 
danger behind us. Nothing was to be feared from 
the Indians of this region, the Sacs and Foxes, Kanzas 
and Osages. We had met with rare good fortune. 
Although for five months we had been travelling 
with an insufficient force through a country where 
we were at any moment liable to depredation, not a 
single animal had been stolen from us, and our only 
loss had been one old mule bitten to death by a rattle- 
snake. Three weeks after we reached the frontier, 
the Pawnees and the Camanches began a regular 
series of hostilities on the Arkansas trail, killing men 
and driving off horses. They attacked, without 
exception, eveiy party, large or small, that passed 
during the next six months. 

Diamond Spring, Rock Creek, Elder Grove, and 
other 'camping places besides, were passed in quick 
succession. At Rock Creek we found a train of 
government provision-wagons under the charge of an 
emaciated old man in his seventy-first year. Some 
restless American devil had driven him into the wil- 
derness at a time of life when he should have been 
seated at his fireside with his grandchildren on his 



462 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

knees. I am convinced that he never returned; he 
was complaming that night of a disease, the wasting 
effects of which upon a younger and stronger man, I 
myself had proved from severe experience. Long 
before this no doubt the wolves have howled their 
moonlight carnival over the old man's attenuated 
remains. 

Not long after we came to a small trail leading to 
Fort Leavenworth, distant but one day's journey. 
Tete Rouge here took leave of us. He was anxious 
to go to the fort in order to receive payment for 
his valuable military ser-\dces. So he and his horse 
James, after an affectionate farewell, set out together, 
with what provisions they could conveniently carry, 
including a large quantity of brown sugar. On a 
cheerless rainy evening we came to our last 'camping 
ground. 

In the morning we mounted once more. In spite 
of the dreary rain of yesterday, there never was a 
brighter autumnal morning than that on which we 
returned to the settlements. We were passing tlirough 
the country of the half-civilized Shawanoes. It was 
a beautiful alternation of fertile plains and groves 
just tinged with the hues of autumn, while close 
beneath them nestled the log-houses of the Indian 
farmers. Every field and meadow bespoke the exu- 
berant fertility of the soil. The maize stood rustling 
in the wind, ripe and dry, its shining yellow ears 
thrust out between the gaping husks. Squashes 
and huge yellow pumpkins lay basking in the sun in 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 463 

the midst of tlieir brown and shrivelled leaves. 
Robins and blackbirds flew about the fences, and 
everything betokened our near approach to home and 
civilization. The forests that border the Missouri 
soon rose before us, and we entered the wide tract of 
bushes which forms their outskirts. We had passed 
the same road on our outward journey in the sjiring, 
but its aspect was now totally changed. The young 
wild apple-trees, then flushed with their fragrant 
blossoms, were hung thickly with ruddy fruit. Tall 
grass grew by the roadside in place of tender shoots 
just peeping from the warm and oozy soil. The 
vines were laden with purple grapes, and the slender 
twigs of the swamp maple, then tasselled with their 
clusters of small red flowers, now hung out a gorgeous 
display of leaves stained by the frost with burning 
crimson. On every side we saw tokens of maturity 
and decay where all had before been fresh with 
opening life. We entered the forest, checkered, as 
we passed along, by the bright spots of sunlight that 
fell between the opening boughs. On either side 
rich masses of foliage almost excluded the sun, 
though here and there its rays could find their way 
down, striking through the broad leaves and lighting 
them with a pure ti-ansparent green. Squirrels barked 
at us from the trees ; coveys of young partridges ran 
rustling over the fallen leaves, and the golden oriole, 
the blue-jay, and the flaming red-bird darted among 
the shadowy branches. We hailed these sights and 
sounds of beauty by no means with unmingled 



464 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

pleasure. Many and powerful as were the attrac- 
tions of the settlements, we looked back regretfully 
to the wilderness behind us. 

At length we saw the roof of a white man's dwell- 
ing between the opening trees. A few moments 
after, we were riding over the miserable log-bridge 
that led into Westport. Westport had beheld strange 
scenes, but a rougher-looking troop than ours, with 
our worn equipments and broken-down horses, was 
never seen even there. We passed the well-remem- 
bered tavern, Boone's grocery, and old Vogel's dram- 
shop, and encamped on a meadow beyond. Here we 
were soon visited by a number of people who came to 
purchase our horses and equipments. This matter 
disposed of, we hired a wagon and drove to Kanzas 
landing. Here we were again received under the 
hospitable roof of our old friend Colonel Chick, and 
seated under his porch, we looked down once more 
on the eddies of the Missouri. 

Deslauriers made his appearance in the morning, 
strangely transformed by a hat, a coat, and a razor. 
His little log-house was among the woods not far off. 
It seems he had meditated giving a ball in honor of 
his return, and had consulted Henry Chatillon, as to 
whether it would do to invite his bourgeois. Henry 
expressed his entire conviction that we would not 
take it amiss, and the invitation was now proffered 
accordingly, Deslauriers adding as a special induce- 
ment that Antoine Lajeunesse was to play the fiddle. 
We told him we would certainly come, but before 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 465 

evening the arrival of a steamboat from Fort Leaven- 
worth prevented our being present at the expected 
festivities. Deslauriers was on the rock at the land- 
ing-place, waiting to take leave of us. 

"Adieu! mes bourgeois, adieu! adieu!" he cried, 
as the boat put off ; " when you go another time to 
de Rocky Montagues I will go with you; yes, I 
will go!" 

He accompanied this assurance by jumping about, 
swinging his hat, and griiming from ear to ear. As 
the boat rounded a distant point, the last object that 
met our eyes was Deslauriers still lifting his hat and 
skipping about the rock. We had taken leave of 
Munroe and Jim Gurney at Westport, and Henry 
Chatillon went down in the boat with us. 

The passage to St. Louis occupied eight days, 
during about a third of which time we were fast 
aground on sand-bars. We passed the steamer 
"Amelia" crowded with a roaring crew of disbanded 
volunteers, swearing, drinking, gambling, and fight- 
ing. At length one evening we reached the crowded 
levee of St. Louis. Repairing to the Planters' House, 
we caused diligent search to be made for our trunks, 
which were at length discovered stowed away in the 
farthest corner of the store-room. In the morning, 
transformed by the magic of the tailor's art, we 
hardly recognized each other. 

On the evening before our departure, Henry 

Chatillon came to our rooms at the Planters' House 

to take leave of us. No one who met him in the 

30 



466 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

streets of St. Louis would have taken him for a 
hunter fresh from the Rocky Mountains. He was 
very neatly and simply dressed in a suit of dark 
cloth; for although since his sixteenth year he had 
scarcely been for a month together among the abodes 
of men, he had a native good taste which always led 
him to pay great attention to his personal appearance. 
His tall athletic figure with its easy flexible motions 
appeared to advantage in his present dress; and his 
fine face, though roughened by a thousand storms, 
was not at all out of keeping with it. He had served 
us with a fidelity and zeal beyond all praise. We 
took leave of him with regret; and unless his chang- 
ing features, as he shook us by the hand, belied him, 
the feeling on his part was no less than on ours. 
Shaw had given him a horse at Westport. My rifle, 
an excellent piece, which he had always been fond of 
using, is now in his hands, and perhaps at this moment 
its sharp voice is startling the echoes of the Rocky 
Mountains. On the next morning we left town, and 
after a fortnight of railroads, coaches, and steamboats, 
saw once more the familiar features of home. 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



Absinth, 144. 

Adveuturers, 4. 

Afijassiz Museum, the, 360. 

Alleghanies, the, 6, 103. 

" Amelia," the steamer, 465. 

American Fur Company, the, 16, 
80; posts established by, 122; 
135, 152, 182, 348. 

Americans, the, in the battle of 
Sacramento, 435. 

Animals, inferior, the Indians as- 
cribe intelligence to, 280. 

Antelope, 82, 95, 143, 147, 162, 
163; the graceful peace spirit 
of the Ogillallah, 180; 210, 216, 
230, 253, 269, 314, 317, 340, 443. 

Apennines, the, 215. 

Arapahoes, the, fastnesses of, x ; 
161, 225, 286; their declaration 
against the whites, 292 ; the 
dragoons among, 293 ; treach- 
ery of, 293 ; their consternation, 
293 ; send a deputation to Fort 
Laramie, 294 ; become insolent, 
294; 365,366,368,374,375,391, 
392, 393 ; the language of, 39.t ; 
Parkman among, 392-397 ; 399, 
401,405,406. 

Arkansas Kiver, the, 77, 282, 
348, 353, 354, 355; Kearney's 
march up, 355 ; 366, 370, 374, 
389, 393, 394, 413, 417; Park- 
man on, 434, 461. 

Arkansas Valley, the, 374. 



" Arrow-Breakers, The," 302, 303. 
Arrow- Head, Chief, at the Ogil- 
lallah village, 236. 
Ash Hollow, 107. 
"Astoria," Irving's, 151 
Atlantic, the, 14. 

Backwoodsman, the, American, 
his home the forest, 132; com- 
pared with the Canadian voya- 
geur, 132; 155. 

Badgers, 404. 

Bad Wound, Chief, lodge of, 236. 

Baptiste, Jean, 16. 

Beaver, the, 271, 296, 297, 305, 
306. 

Beckworth, Jim, adventures of, 
152-154. 

Bent's Fort, 292, 347, 348, 372, 
376, 377 ; location of, 377 ; 
Parkman at, 377 ; 379, 382,390, 
391. 

" Big Blue," the, Parkman at, 62, 
63; 65. 

Big Crow, Chief, at the Ogillallah 
village, 235 ; lodge of, 236, 237 ; 
239, 241, 243. 246, 249, 251, 259, 
268, 270, 274, 280, 282, 283 ; his 
scars, 284-286; 299, 310, 335. 

Big-horn, the, 311, 328. 

Bisonette, a trapper, 196, 200, 203, 
205, 206, 343, 348 ; camp of, 
352; Parkman visits, 353, 356, 
361. 



470 



INDEX. 



Bitter Cotton-wood Creek, Park- 
man at, 209. 

Blackfoot, the, 70, 71. 

Blackfoot country, the, 70. 

Blackfoot war-party, a, attacked 
by the Crows, 152-154. 

Black Hills, the, x, 115, 119, 177, 
180, 192, 194, 19.5, 21.3, 238, 
251, 275, 288, 296, 297, 305-308, 
313, 317, 446, 453. 

Boiling Spring Creek, Parkman 
at, 370. 

Boisverd, a trapper, 10, 26, 62. 63, 
70. 

Boone, Daniel, 13, 156. 

Boone, Mr., of Westport, 13 ; 
464. 

Boot, a trapper killed by the In- 
dians, 293. 

Bordeaux, at Fort Laramie, 119; 
120, 121, 126, 127, 130, 131; 
quarrels with Perrault, 157 ; 
his cowardice, 157; 158, 171; 
refuses to receive the gifts of 
the deputation of the Arapa- 
hoes, 294 ; 344. 

Boston, 379. 

Bridger's Fort, 380. 

Brule, the, thorough savages, 
134. 

Buena Vista, the volunteers of, 
132. 

Buffalo, the, ix, 20, 75, 77, 81-99, 
159, 177, 227, 229, 230, 234, 
235, 252, 254, 256, 259, 263, 264, 
265, 266, 274, 314, 315, 317, 
367 ; methods of hunting, 402- 
405 ; 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 
411, 412,413; the camp of, 414- 
433; 441, 444, 446, 448, 453, 
459. 

Bull-Bear, see Mahto-Tatonka. 

Bull-Tail, 161. 

Buzzards, 430. 



C , Captain, at Westport, 

7 ; description of, 7 ; joins Park- 
man's party, 8 ; 12, 26 ; at Fort 
Leavenworth, 31 ; his outfit, 33 ; 
35, 36, 43, 44, 45, 52, 53, 59, 60, 
61, 68 ; hunting buffalo, 86 ; 98, 
99 ; Parkman's party takes leave 
of, 105. 

C , Jack, 8, 27, 36, 39, 43, 59, 

61, 98, 105, 106. 

" Caches, The," 391, 392, 397, 447. 

Cacti, 144. 

California, xiv, 3, 8, 66, 156, 234, 
355, 374, 379, 455, 456. 

California emigrants, the, 47, 155, 
348, 380, 417, 418, 429, 432. 

Camanches, the, 347, 355, 376, 387, 
447, 461. 

Canadians, 356, 365. 

Cannibalism, 156. 

Capri, the cliffs of, 370. 

Carondelet, the town of, xvi, 

Carson, Kit, 405. 

Catlin, the traveller, 128. 

Chatillon, Henry, Parkman's 
guide, xvi, 1 5 ; description of, 
16; characteristics of, 17, 18, 
425 ; 2.5, 35, 42, 49, 54, 62, 64, 
73; hunting buffalo, 81-84; 
86, 87, 90, 92, 93, 97, 98, 108, 
109, 111, 114; at Fort Laramie, 
120, 126 ; sickness of his squaw, 
141, 142; 143, 146, 148, 149, 
150, 164; death of his squaw, 
166-168; 170,181,195,196,203, 
204, 208, 252, 343, 346, 350, 
351, 363, 366, 367, 368, 377, 382, 
390, 391, 394, 395, 396, 399 , 
" approaching " buffalo, 405 ; 
406, 408, 415, 418, 419, 421, 
423, 424, 426, 428, 430, 431, 439, 
443, 444, 448, 453, 454, 459, 400, 
464, 465. 

Cherry Creek, Parkman at, 366. 

Chick", Colonel, 6, 11, 464. 



INDEX. 



471 



Chick, Mrs., 11. 

Chief, tiie Indian, the authority 
of, 176. 

Chihuahua, the city of, 435. 

Chugwater, 149, 150, 164, 165, 
342. 

Cimarron, the, 434. 

Council Grove, 460. 

Cow Creek, 459, 460. 

Crickets, 359. 

Crows, the, 22 ; violate the sepul- 
ture of the Dahcotahs, 125 ; 
war-parties of, 148, 149 ; attack 
the Blackfoot war-party, 152- 
154; 165, 1G9, 220; the grand 
war-party against, 287. 

Crow village, the, 152. 

Curlews, 144, 212. 

Dahcotah, the, exploit of, 74. 

Dahcotah, the, 101, 110, 113; 
their place of sepulture, 125; 
take advantage of the timorous 
mood of the emigrants, 133 ; 
demand a " feast," 1 33 ; war- 
like excitement among, 139; 
encounter great reverses, 139 ; 
prepare to take revenge upon the 
Snakes, 140 ; their rendezvous 
at " La Bonte's camp," 140 ; 
148, 149; exterminate the vil- 
lage of the Hohays, 1 52 ; cut 
off the Delawares, 1 52 ; bent on 
war, 159 ; range over a vast 
territory, 175 ; their diversions, 
176; their customs, 176; their 
hospitality, 179; 220; fraterni- 
ties among, 302 ; the custom of 
gifts among, 302 ; 352, 356, 358, 
395, 396. 

Dahcotah, the eastern, 176. 

Dahcotah, tlie western, have no 
fixed habitations, 177; war the 
breath of their nostrils, 177. 

Deer, 147, 223, 309, 318. 



Deer, blatk-tailed, 306, 311, 314, 

336. 
Delawares, the, at Westport, 7 ; 

21, 23, 24, 25, 26 ; cut off by the 
Dahcotah, 152. 

Deslauriers, Parkman's muleteer, 
xvi, 15 ; de.scription of, 16 ; 18, 

22, 23, 33, 36, 37, 42, 48, 49, 50, 
53, ,54, 56, 57, 63, 70, 71, 104, 
106, 140, 142, 143, 147, 188, 203, 
206, 208, 344, 349, 359, 364, 368, 
377, 381, 385, 386, 393, 406, 408, 
414, 415, 417, 427, 428, 430, 439, 
440, 441, 464, 465. 

Diamond Spring, 461. 
Dobbs, Dr., 451. 
Dog-feast, the, 138, 241. 
Doniphan, success at Sacramento 

of, 435. 
Doniphan's volunteers, 434 ; in 

the battle of Sacramento, 436. 
Dor-bugs, 53, 54. 
Dorion, Paul, the Dahcotah, at 

Fort Laramie, 151-156, 343, 

352. 
Dorion, Pierre, 151. 
Dragoons, the, expedition of, 12, 

34 ; 46, 47 ; among the Arapa- 

hoes, 292, 293. 

Eagle-Feather, Chief, at the 
Ogillallah village, 235, 246; 
330. 

Elder Grove, 461. 

Elk, 145, 223, 308,309, 311,318, 
328, 336. 

Ellis, at Bent's Fort, 380; 386, 
387, 390, 414, 416, 446, 448. 

Ellis, Mary, grave of, 65. 

Emigrants, 5, 66 ; at Fort Laramie, 
131 ; their prejudice against the 
French Indians, 131 ; timorous 
mood of, 133. See also Cali- 
fornia emigrants and Oregon 
emigrants. 



472 



INDEX. 



Engages, the, at Fort Laramie, 

120, 126. 
England, 103. 
Europe, 103. 
Ewing, 392. 

" Fire-medicine," 278. 

"Five Hundred Dollar," Chatil- 
lon's horse, 81, 82, 109. 

Forest, the, the home of the back- 
woodsman, 132. 

Forts, Indian, 224. 

Foxes, 334. 

Frederic, 86, 87. 

Fremont, disastrous passage of, 
xvi; 277. 

French, the, 131. 

French Indians, the, prejudice of 
the emigrants against, 131. 

French hunters, at Independence, 
6. 

Fur Company, the, see American 
Fur Company, the. 

Gamblebs, 4. 

Gambling, among the Indians, 

281. 
Gentile persecution, x. 
" Gentiles," the, 376. 
German forests, the, 103. 
Gifts, tlie custom of, among the 

Dahcotahs, 302. 
Gingras, a trapper, 160, 169, 189, 

196. 
" Goche"s Plole," 350. 
Gold, in the Black Mountains, 

313. 
Good Woman, the, 276, 278, 342. 
Grasslioppers, 359. 
Great Spirit, the, 159, 178, 185, 

278, 291, 293. 
Grizzly bears, 18, 19, 180, 187, 209, 

223,350, 351, 373. 
Gros- Ventre Blackfeet, the, 225, 

28G. 



Gurney, .Tim, at Bent's Fort, 379, 
380; 386, 401, 414, 426, 439, 
446, 448, 465. 

"Hail-Storm, The," 143; at the 
Ogillallah village, 236 ; 254, 255, 
275 ; character of, 318, 319, 320, 
321, 335, 336, 337. 

Half-breeds, 117. 

Hare, the gray, 144, 228. 

" Hendrick," Parkmau's horse, 
22, 38, 39, 84, 106, 160, 164. 

"Hog, The," 113, 114. 

Hohays, the, their village extermi- 
nated by the Dahcotah, 152. 

Holt, Mr., at Bent's Fort, 378. 

Hopkins, John, 382. 

Horn, Cape, 132. 

Horned frog, the, 359. 

" Horse, The," 141, 143, 146, 150; 
character of, 319. 

Horse Creek, Parkman at. 111, 
348, 351, 352. 

Horseshoe Creek, 200, 205. 

Horse-stealing, among the In- 
dians, 183. 

Illinois, the State of, 9, 47, 103. 

Iowa, tlie State of, 379. 

Iowa Indians, the, village of, 46. 

Independence, rendezvous of emi- 
grants at, 5 ; Parkman at, 5, 9 ; 
description of life at, 9 ; 47. 

Indian, tlie, shorn of his pictur- 
esqueuess, xi ; cannot act in 
large liodies, 175 ; the living rep- 
resentative of the " stone age," 
234; liis idea of thunder, 238; 
ascribes intelligence to inferior 
animals, 280 ; his gambling, 
281 ; his " medicines," 282 ; his 
fondness for his children, 283 ; 
tortures of, 284 ; effect of sick- 
ness upon, 290, 291 ; his guardian 
si^irit, 324. 



INDEX. 



473 



ludiau apple, the, 14. 

Indian police, the, 263, 301 ; the 

important functions of, 303 ; 

their authority, 303. 
Indian traders, 107. 
Indian village, the, description of, 

176. 
Insects, prairie, 96. 
Iro(iuois, the, 26. 
Irving, Washington, 151. 
I.srael, the lost tribes of, 166. 

" James," Tete Rouge's horse, 
457, 462. 

Kanzas, Parkman at, 6, 11, 12, 
464. 

Kanzas Indians, the, 4, 6 ; at 
Westport, 7 ; 19, 20, 21, 461. 

Kanzas Kiver, the, 10, 21, 23. 

Kearney, General, at Fort Leaven- 
worth, 28; 31, 34, 47, 156, 282, 
292, 293 ; his inarch up the 
Arkansas, 355 ; marches against 
Santa Fe, 372 ; 376, 378, 393, 
434. 

Kearsley, 68, 69, 75, 78, 80. 

Kentucky, the wilderness of, 103. 

Kickapoos, the, 30. 

Kickapoo trader, the, 29 ; enter- 
tains Parkman, 30, 31 ; 34. 

Kickapoo village, the, 28 ; Park- 
man at, 30. 

Kongra-Tonga, see Big Crow. 

"La Bonte's Camp," Indian ren- 
dezvous at, 140; 146, 159, 171, 
175, 194, 196, 201 ; Parkman 
at, 203; 218, 326. 

Lajeunesse, Autoine, 464. 

Laramie Creek, 119, 128, 143, 144, 
145, 162, 163, 196, 217, 220, 
277, 340, 341, 343. 

Laramie, Fort, 34, 46, 76, 86, 88, 
103, 105, 117, 118, 119 ; its in- 



mates, 120; Parkman at, 121, 
122 ; description of, 122, 123; 
domestic economy at, 126; 
scenes at, 127-138; 142, 156, 
160, 193, 196, 204, 207, 208, 211, 
229, 244, 252, 253, 292; the 
Arapalioes send a deputation to, 
294 ; 326, 334, 343, 346 ; Park- 
man bids adieu to, 348 ; 349, 
352, 359, 371, 374. 

Laramie, Mount, 210, 219. 

Laramie Plains, 139. 

" Latter Day Saints," the, 47. 

Leavenworth, Fort, 12, 24, 26, 27 ; 
I'arkman at, 28 ; Kearney at, 
28 ; 38, 46, 292, 462, 465. 

Le Borgne, description of, 179; 
the vision of, 180, 235. 

Le Cochon, see " Hog, The." 

Le Rouge, Antoine, 343, 352, 356, 
357. 

Little Arkansas, the, 460. 

Lizards, 359. 

Lodges, Indian, visited by Park- 
man, 135. 

Long's Peak, 362. 

Lower Delaware, the, 21. 

Lower Platte, the, 74. 

Mackenzie, 252. 

Mad Wolf, Chief, 190; at the 
Ogillallah village, 235 ; his 
struggle with Tall Bear, 302, 
303. 

Magoffin, a trader, 391. 

Mahto-Tatonka, the Ogillallah 
chief, description of, 181 ; his 
feud with Smoke, 181-183; his 
death, 182; 246. 

Mahto-Tatonka, the youugcr, 150, 
166, 170, 171, 179, 183; descrip- 
tion of, 183-185 ; 191, 198, 235. 

Margot, Reynal's squaAV, 143, 147, 
264, 276. " 

Marie Bordeaux's equaw, 130, 131 



474 



INDEX. 



Matamoras, Taylor's victories at, 
355. 

Maxwell, a trader, 395. 
May, a trader, 119, 128. 
May, a trapper, killed by the In- 
dians, 293. 
McCliiskey, a trader, 158, 159. 
Medicine Bow range, the, 231, 

245, 275, 285, 294, 295. 
"Medicine-man," the, 173, 288. 
" Medicine-pipe," the, 172. 
" Medicines," Indian, 282. 
"Medicine-song," the, 300. 
" Medicine-smoke," the, 301. 
Mcneaska, the, 135, 186, 243, 248, 

289, 333, 355. 
Mene-Seela, see Red- Water. 
Methodist Shawanoe Mission, the, 

20. 
Mexican clergy, the, 253. 
Mexican frontier, the, 116. 
Mexicans, 87, 155, 355, 371, 372, 

374, 375, 382, 383, 385, 386 ; in 

the battle of Sacramento, 435, 

436; 451. 
Mexican territories, 26, 233. 
Mexico, 355, 382. 
Minnicongew lodges, the, 154, 159. 
Missourians, 434, 456, 458, 459, 

460. 
Missouri River, the, 3, 4, 6, 11, 12, 

26, 28, 29, 77, 155, 157, 160, 464. 
Missouri, the State of, xvi, 5, 20, 

46, 47, 103, 187, 463. 
Missouri Volunteers, the, 455. 
MoIiawLs, the, 190. 
Monterey, the volunteers of, 132. 
Monthalon, at Fort Laramie, 121, 

128. 
Morin, a trapper, 169, 172; his 

bride, 173; 200, 205. 
Mormon, x. 

Mormon battalion, tlie, 455. 
Mormons, the, 47, 48, 107, 373, 

376, 456. 



Mormon settlement, the, Parkman 

at, 375. 
" Mountain men," the, 4, 87, 117, 

380. 
" Mule-killer," the, 4. 
Munroe, at Bent's Fort, 379 ; 385, 

386, 415, 417, 427, 430, 453, 454, 

465. 

Naples, the sky of, 370. 
Nauvoo, the great Mormon temple 

of, 376 ; trading establishment 

at, 382. 
Navaho slaves, 116. 
Negroes, 4. 

New England, 23, 137, 144, 209. 
New Hampshire, the mountains 

of, 23. 
New Mexico, 434. 
New Orleans, 382. 
Nez Perce' Mission, the, 253. 

Ogillallah, the, 22 ; thorough 
savages, 134 ; Parkman and 
Shaw among, 136; 175,176; the 
antelope the graceful peace 
spirit of, 180; 181; the lodges 
of, 231 ; 234, 244, 286, 287, 304. 

Ogillallah village, the, Parkman 
at, 234-247; breaks up, 248; 
legends and traditions of, 272 ; 
344. 

Ohio, the wilderness of, 103. 

Ojibwas, the, 176. 

Old Smoke, 109, 111, 134;- his 
lodge, 136, 137; entertains 
Parkman, 137, 138; his feud 
with Mahto-Tatonka, 181, 347. 

Oregon, xiv, 3, 6, 8, 66, 103, 135, 
234. 

Oregon emigrants, the, 4, 34, 46, 
47, 64, 373, 380. 

Osages, tlie, 461. 

Ottawa River, the, rapids of, 132. 

Owls, 361. 



INDEX. 



475 



Pacific Ocean, the, xiv. 

Palo Alto, the battle of, 372. 

Panther, Chief, at the Ogillallah 
village, 235 ; 253, 254 ; char- 
acter of, 330 ; 333. 

Papin, the " boss " of Fort Lar- 
amie, 86, 87, 121 ; 252, 340, 
349. 

Parkman, Francis, at Pike's Peak, 
xiii ; the motives for his trip 
to the Rocky Mountains, xv ; 
among the Sioux, xvi ; on board 
the " Radnor," 3 ; at Independ- 
ence, 5, 9 ; at Kanzas, 6 ; at 
Westport, 6 ; fellow-travellers, 
8 ; an unfortunate beginning, 
12; description of his com- 
panions, 16; visitors, 19; on 
the Kanzas, 21 ; at Fort Leaven- 
worth, 28 ; at the Kickapoo vil- 
lage, 30 ; entertained by the 
Kickapoo trader, 30, 31 ; mis- 
givings, 33; "jumping off," 
33-46 ; on the St. Joseph trail, 
48-62 ; reaches the " Big Blue," 
62 ; in camp, 64 ; a further ad- 
dition to the party, 69 ; in the 
Platte Valley, 76 ; hunting 
buffalo, 82-84, 90, 266-268; 
a predicament, 89 ; lost on the 
prairie, 94-97 ; at the South 
Fork of the Platte, 100 ; takes 

leave of Captain C 's party, 

104; at Scott's Bluff, 108; 
among the Dahcotahs, 110; in 
Old Smoke's village. 111; a 
matrimonial bargain proposed, 
114; entertained by Richard, 
1 16, 1 17 ; reaches Fort Laramie, 
119 ; at Fort Laramie, 120-138 ; 
visits an Indian lodge, 135 ; en- 
joys a dog-feast, 138 ; plans to 
be present at the rendezvous 
at "La Bonte's camp," 140; 
forced to give up his plan, 141, 



142; his illness, 142; hires rein- 
forcements, 142, 143; in danger 
from the Crows, 1 49 ; his ex- 
periences with Paul at Fort 
Laramie, 151-156 ; his ad- 
ventures returning to camp, 
158-165; entertained by the 
Dahcotah, 179; visits the 
" Whirlwind," 185, 186; scenes 
in his camp, 186-190; sick in 
camp, 191, 192; ill-luck, 193- 
202 ; at La Bonte's camp, 203 ; 
hunting Indians, 204-231 ; at 
Bitter Cottonwood Creek, 209; 
at the lodges of the Ogillallah, 
231, 234; visits the Big Crow, 
237-247; return of his illness, 
249, 251 ; as a "fire medicine," 
278 ; in Big Crow's lodge, 280- 
286; visits White Shield, 287, 
288 ; breaks camp, 298 ; a 
threatened attack, 299 ; in the 
Black Hills, 305-308; a moun- 
tain hunt, 310-325; passage of 
the mountains, 326-345 ; rejoins 
Shaw at Fort Laramie, 343-345 ; 
bids adieu to Fort Laramie, 
348 ; at " Goche's Hole," 350 ; 
at Bisonette's camp, 352; en- 
tertained by the Stabber, 354; 
at Cherry Creek, 366; at Boil- 
ing Spring Creek, 370 ; at 
Pueblo, 370-374; at the Mor- 
mon settlement, 375 ; at Bent's 
Fort, 377-380; on the Upper 
Arkansas, 388 ; Indian alarms, 
388-401 ; among the Arapalioes, 
392-397 ; a buffalo chase, 405- 
413; the buffalo camp, 41 4-433 ; 
down the Arkansas, 434-454 ; 
returns to the settlements, 455- 
466. 

" Parks," the, 177. 

Parks, Chief, 20. 

"Pauline," Parkmau's mare, 207, 



476 



INDEX. 



210, 212, 216, 218, 221, 222, 223, 
228, 229, 250, 262, 264, 266, 267, 
268, 306, 335, 340, 411, 412. 
Pawnee Fork, the, 392. 
Pawnees, the, 19, 44, 69, 71, 73, 
75, 78, 101, 136, 347, 348, 376, 
396, 397, 444, 447, 457, 461. 
Pawnee trail, the, 74. 
Pawnee villages, the, 74, 88. 
Pemmican, 262. 
Penn, William, 26. 
Pennsylvania, the State of, 23. 
Perrault, quarrels with Bor- 
deaux, 157 ; sets out for Fort 
Pierre, 157. 
Philip, King, 175. 
Pierre, at Fort Laramie, 127, 128. 
Pierre, Fort, 157, 344. 
Pike's Peak, Parkman at, xiii ; 

195, 367, 369. 
Planters' House, the, St. Louis, 

465. 
Platte, the, 34, 37, 40, 47, 48, 69, 
73, 75, 76, 77 ; the climate of, 
79; 81, 86, 88, 94, 97, 100, 101, 
103, 107, 114, 115, 118, 140,205 ; 
366. 
Platte Valley, the, Parkman in, 

76. 
Pontiac, 175. 

" Pontiac," Parkman's hor.=;e, 22, 
38, 39, 42, 54, 92, 93,94, 97, 106, 
207. 
Pottawattamies, the, 30. 
Prairie Cock, the, 135. 
Prairie-dogs, 85, 96, 144, 360, 361. 
Prairie-dog village, a, 149. 
Price's Missouri regiment, 434, 

436, 448. 
Pueblo, the, 353, 358, 364 ; Park- 
man at, 370; the gate of, 371 ; 
the state apartment of, 372 ; 
apprehension of the inhabitants 
of, 374 ; 377. 
Pukwi lodges, the, 30. 



Quebec, 16. 

R , Colonel, 156. 

K , Mr., at Westport, 7 ; joins 

Parkman's party, 8 ; 10 ; a high- 
handed proceeding, 12 ; 27 ; at 
Fort Leavenworth, 32 ; his out- 
fit, 33 ; 34, 36, 46, 59, 61 ; at 
the " Big Blue," 62, 63 ; 68 ; 
his further stupidity, 68 ; 86, 
88; lost on the prairie, 98; re- 
turns to camp, 101, 102; Park- 
man's party takes leave of, 104. 

" Rabbit, The," 275, 318, 320. 

Rabbits, 316. 

" Radnor," the, Parkman on, 3 ; 
her freight, 3 ; her passengers, 
4. 

Rattlesnake, the, 144, 364. 

Raymond, the hunter, death of, 
xii ; joins Parkman's party, 142, 
143, 147, 204, 207, 208, 210, 211, 
212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 
220 221 222 223 225 228 229 
230, 231 ; at the Ogillallah vil- 
lage, 234, 237, 241, 242, 244, 248, 
250, 252, 253, 258, 259 ; 263, 
264, 268, 269, 274, 298, 299, 300, 
306, 307, 310, 311, 321, 327, 328, 
329, 335, 336, 340, 341, 343, 349, 
357, 363, 376. 

Reddick, adventures of, 347. 

Red-Water, Chief, at the Ogil- 
lallah village, 235 ; lodge of, 
236, 238; 244, 245, 246, 257, 
261,270; a great friend to tlie 
whites, 271 ; 272, 294, 299, 301, 
323, 324. 

Resaca de la Palma, the battle of, 
372. 

Reyual, the Indian trader, joins 
Parkman's party, 143 ; 147, 150, 
164, 169, 170, 187, 188, 194, 197, 
223 ; at the Ogillallah village, 
234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 240, 241, 



INDEX. 



477 



242, 243, 246, 251. 252, 253, 254, 
258, 264, 265, 274, 275, 288, 289. 
290, 297, 299, 300, 307, 310, 312, 
313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 320, 
321, 328, 329, 339, 340. 

Richard entertains Parkmau, 116, 
117; 118; his trading-house, 
151; 155, 188; at Pueblo, 371, 
372, 374; 377. 

Richard's Fort, 154, 155, 159. 

Richardson, 343. 

Ridge-path, the, 452, 456. 

Rio Grande, the, 142. 

Rock Creek, 461. 

Rocky Mountains, the, Parkman's 
trip to, 3; 17, 26, 34, 76, 80, 141, 
176, 200, 231, 275, 296, 315, 
362, 466. 

Rocky Mountain trapper, the, wild 
and perilous life of, 170 ; 193. 

Roman empire, the, 103. 

" Root-Diggers," the, 257. 

Roubidou, the blacksmith, 160. 

Rouleau, a trapper, 161, 169, 182, 
275, 278 ; hazardous enterprise 
of, 292 ; laughs at danger, 294 ; 
description of, 295 ; his unlucky 
partiality for squaws, 295 ; life 
of, 296 ; his departure, 297. 

Rouville, 348, 349 ; description of, 
349 ; 351, 352. 

Russel's party, 348. 

Sacramento, Doniphan's success 
at, 435. 

Sacs and Foxes, the, at Westport, 
7; 461. 

St. Joseph, 46, 47. 

St. Joseph emigrants, the, 47. 

St. Joseph's trail, the, 46 ; Park- 
man on, 48. 

St. Louis, the city of, xvi ; a busy 
season in, 3 ; Kanzas Indians in, 
4; 7, 8, 16, 17,28, 152, 252, 349, 
436, 451, 465, 466. 



St. Louis volunteers, the, 382. 

yt. Peter, the river, 176. 

8t. Vrain, M., 365. 

Santa Fe, 3 ; expedition at, 28 ; 
253, 371 ; Kearney marches 
against, 372; 377, 391, 434, 
437, 450, 456. 

Santa Fe trade, the, 3. 

Santa Fe' traders, 4, 5, 9, 391. 

Saraphiu, a trapper, 169, 275; 
hazardous enterprise of, 292 ; 
laughs at danger, 294 ; descrip- 
tion of, 295 ; his departure, 297. 

Scott's Bluff, Parkman at, 108. 

Self-torture, among the Indians, 
284. 

Sepulture, Indian places of, 125. 

Shaw, Quincy Adams, with Park- 
man in his trip to the Rocky 
Mountains, 3 ; 15, 16, 18, 22, 31, 
33, 43, 44, 46 ; on the St. Joseph 
trail, 48, 57 ; at the " Big Blue," 
63, 73; on the Platte, 81, 85; 
hunting buffalo, 90-93 ; 97, 99, 
106 ; visits an Indian lodge, 135 ; 
assumes a medical character, 
136, 137 ; 143, 147, 149, 150, 
1 64 ; his adventures with Cha- 
tillon, 165-168; 196, 197, 202, 
203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208; 
seriously ill, 208; 211, 252; 
ill at Fort Laramie, 252; 282, 
292, 326, 334, 343, 344, 345, 346 ; 
bids adieu to Fort Laramie, 348 ; 
350, 351, 364, 367, 368, 383, 388, 
394, 401, 405, 406; a buffalo 
chase, 408-413; 415, 416, 417, 
422, 423, 424, 425, 428, 430, 431, 
433, 436, 446, 448, 453, 454, 466. 

Shawanoes, the, at Westport, 7 ; 
18, 20, 23, 26,462. 

Sheep, Rocky Mountain, 223, 242, 
308, 328, 329. 

Shields, Indian, 396. 

Shiennes, the, at the Ogillallah vil- 



478 



INDEX. 



lage, 235 ; lodges of, 352 ; 356, 
358, 381. 

Sibille, a trader, 352. 

Side Fork of Laramie Creek, the, 
212. 

Simoneau, the hunter, 17, 119. 

Sioux, the, Parkman among, xvi ; 
134, 158 ; range over a vast ter- 
ritory, 175. 

Smoke, see Old Smoke. 

Smoke's village, 109, 111, 128-133, 
142. 

Smoking, the prairie custom of, 
117. 

Snake country, the, 139, 247. 

Snakes, 96, 361. 

Snakes, the, wipe out the Ogillal- 
lah expedition, 139 ; dread tlie 
resentment of the Dahcotah, 
139 ; The Whirlwind prepares 
to take revenge upon, 140; 
the Dahcotah make war upon, 
176; 225, 229, 245, 258, 285; 
the grand war-party against, 
287, 289. 

" Soldiers," the, see Indian police, 
the. 

Sorel, a Canadian, 8, 10, 26, 62, 
63 ; hunting buffalo, 86 ; lost 
on the prairie, 98 ; returns to 
camp, 102. 

South Fork of the Platte, the, 
Parkman at, 100, 362, 364. 

Spaniards at Independence, 5. 

Speculators, 4. 

Squaws, Indian, 111, 112, 120, 
124, 129, 130, 134, 136 ; the pur- 
chase of, 172 ; the stealing of, 
183; 243, 273,397. 

Squirrels, black, 367. 

" Stabber, The," entertains Park- 
man, 354 ; his story, 354, 355. 

Stephens, Bill, 382. 

" Stone age," the, Indians the liv- 
ing representatives of, 234. 



" Strong Hearts," the, society of, 

358. 
Sublette, adventures of, 347, 348, 

377. 
Swau, killed by the Indians, 391 ; 

grave of, 447. 
Sweetwater, 292. 

Tall Bear, struggles with the 
Mad Wolf, 302, 303. 

Taos, 253, 371. 

Taylor, General, at Matamoraa, 
355; 435. 

Tecumseh, 175. 

Tete Rouge, description of, 381 ; 
sketch of, 382 ; hifl illness, 382, 
383; 384, 385, 386, 389, 390, 
393, 398, 400, 401, 405, 417, 419, 
426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 432, 438, 
439, 440, 451, 453, 456, 457, 458, 
462. 

Thunder, the Indian idea of, 238. 

Thunder-fighters, Indian, 239. 

Tom, 89, 90. 

Traders, at Fort Laramie, 120; 
365. 

Trapper, the mountain, xv. 

Trappers, 107 ; at Fort Laramie, 
120; 1.55. 

Troche, a trapper, 348, 350. 

Tucker, 119. 

Turkey-buzzards, 432. 

Turner, 73. 

Upper Arkansas, the, Parkman 

on, 388 ; Kearney on, 434. 
Upper Lakes, the, 176. 
Upper Missouri, the, 152. 
Utah squaw, the, 350. 

Vaskiss, the trader, 119, 122, 128, 

139. 
Vera Cruz, 382. 
Vermont woods, the, 23. 
Vogel, in Kanzas, 12; 464. 



II 



INDEX. 



479 



]^oi/ngeur, the Canadian, compared 

with the backwoodsman, 132. 
"Vultures, 432, 433. 

Wasna, 262, 276, 318, 342. 

Weah Washtay, see Good Woman, 
the. 

West, 190. 

Western plains, the, 14. 

Westport, Parkman at, 6 ; full of 
Indians, 7 ; 10, 12, 13, 14, 20, 31, 
73, 464, 465, 466. 

Whirlwind, the, the Ogillallah 
chief, 139 ; his hatred of the 
Snakes, 139; makes his prepara- 
tions for revenge, 140 ; Park- 



man plans to join, 142 ; 146, 
150, 158, 159, 171, 175; Park- 
man visits, 185, 186, 194; 235, 
236, 326. 

Whirlwind's village, the, 142, 204. 

White Shield, Chief, 198; at the 
Ogillallah village, 235 ; 256 ; 
lodge of, 287, 288; illness of, 
288, 289; 290, 291. 

Wolves, 71, 72, 82, 95, 101, 144, 
145, 187, 210, 229, 230, 282, 
308, 368, 390, 404, 431, 432, 433, 
445, 447, 454. 

Wright, a muleteer, 26, 33, 36, 37, 
63, 79, 104. 

Wyandots, the, at Westport, 7. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN'S WORKS 

NEW LIBRARY EDITION. 

Printod from entirely new plates, in clear and beautiful type, 
upon a choice laid paper. Illustrated with twenty-four photo- 
gravure plates executed by Goupil from historical portraits, and 
from original drawings and paintings by Howard Pyle, De Cost 
Smith, Thule de Thulstrup, Frederic Remington, Orson Lowell. 
Adrien Moreau, and other artists. 

Twelve volumes, medium octavo, cloth, gilt top, price, 
$2.00 per volume; half calf, extra, gilt top, $4,50 per 
volume ; half crushed Levant morocco, extra, gilt top, 
$6.00 per vol nine ; half morocco, gilt top, $4.50 per 
volume. 

I.IST OF VOLUMES. 

PIONEERS OF FRANCE IN THE NEW WORLD I vol. 

THE JESUITS Df NORTH AMERICA I vol. 

LA SALLE AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT WEST ... I vol. 

THE OLD REGIME IN CANADA I voL 

COUNT FRONTENAC AND HEW FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XIV. . I vol 

A HALF CENTURY OF CONFLICT 2 vols. 

MONTCALM AND WOLFE 2 vols. 

THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC AND THE INDLAN WAR AFTER 

THE CONQUEST OF CANADA 2 vols. 

THE OREGON TRAIL I vol. 

Any work supplied separately in cloth. 

IMiUSTBATIONS. 

1. Portrait of Francis Parkman. 

2. Jacques Caktier. From the painting at St. Malo. 

3. Madame de la Peltrie. From the painting in the Convent des 

Ursulines. 

4. Father Jogues Haranguing the Mohawks. From the picture 

by Thule de Thulstrup. 

5. Father Hennepin Celebrating Mass. From the picture by How- 

ard Pyle. 

6. La Salle Presenting a Petition to Louis XIV. From the paint- 

ing by Adrien Moreau. 

7. Jean Baptiste Colbert. From a painting by Claude Leffevbre at 

Versailles. 

8. Jean Guyon before Bouill^. From a picture by Orson Lowell. 

9. Madasie DE Frontenac. From the painting at Versailles. 

10. Entry of Sir William Phips into the Quebec Basin. From a 

picture by L. Rossi. 

11. The Sacs and Foxes. From the picture by Charles Bodmer. 

12. The Return from Deerfield. From the painting by Howard Pyle. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN'S WORKS. 



13. Sir William Pei'pekkeli^. From the painting by Smibert. 

14. Makquis dk Beauharnois, Governor of Canada. From tlie 

painting by Tonnitres in the Musee de Grenoble. 

15. Marquis de 'Montcalm. From the original painting in the posses- 

sion of the present Marquis de Montcahn. 

16. Marquis de Vaudreuil. From the painting in the possession of the 

Countess de Clermont Tonnerre. 

17. General Wolfe. From the original painting bj' Highmore. 

18. The Fall of Montcalm. From the painting by Howard Pyle. 

19. View of the Taking of Quebec. From the early engraving of a 

drawing made on the spot by Capt. Hervej' Smytli, Wolfe's aid-de- 
camp. 

20. Col. Henry Bouquet. From the original painting by Benjamin 

West. 

21. The Death of Pontiac. From the Picture by De Cost Smith. 

22. Sir William Johnson. From a mezzotint engraving. 

23. Half Sliding, Half Plunging. From a drawing by Frederic 

Remington. 

24. The Thunder Fighters. From the picture by Frederic Kemington. 

It is hardly necessary to quote here from the innumerable tributes to so 
famous an American author as Francis Parkman. Among writers who 
have bestowed the highest praise upon his writings are such names as James 
Russell Lowell, Dr. John Fiske, President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard 
University, George William Curtis, Edward Eggleston, W. D. Howells, 
James Schouler, and Dr. Conan Doyle, as well as many prominent critics in 
the United States, in Canada, and in England. 

In two respects Francis Parkman was exceptionally fortunate. He chose 
a theme of the closest interest to his countrj'men, — the colonization of the 
American Continent and the wars for its possession, — and he lived through 
fifty years of toil to complete the great historical series which he designed 
when but a youth at college. 

The text of the New Library Edition is that of the latest issue of each 
•work prepared for the press by the distinguished author. He carefully 
revised and added to several of his works, not through change of views, 
but in the light of new documentary evidence which his patient research 
and untiring zeal extracted from the hidden archives of the past. Thus he 
rewrote and enlarged "The Conspiracy of Pontiac" ; the new edition of 
"La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West" (1878), and the 1885 
edition of " Pioneers of France " included very important additions ; and a 
short time before his death he added to " The Old Regime " fifty pages, 
under the title of " The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia." The New Library Edition 
therefore includes each work in its linal state as perfected by the historian. 
The indexes have been entirelv remade. 



LITTLE, BR0W:N^, & CO., Publishers, 

254 Washington Street, Boston. 



An Important Worii on tlw American Revolution. 

FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 

From Ori<j;inal Documents, most of which are now published for the 
First Time. By Edward E. Hale and Edwaku E. Hale, Jr. 

In 2 vols., 8vo, with 3S historical portraits, including tico fin« 
steel portraits of Frnnklin, I'ricc, $0.00, 

CONTENTS. 

PAKT 1, 

I. 1767-1769. Franklin's First Visit TO France. — The Econ- 
omists. 
II. France and the Treaty of 1763. 

III. Cakon Dk Beaumakchais. 

IV. Franklin's Commission. 

V. Franklin and the French. 
VI. Paris Revisited. 
VII. Lambert Wickes and Gustave Conyngiiam. 
VIII. Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-seven, — " The Year of 
the Three Gibbets." 
IX. Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-eight, — Voltaire and 
Franklin. 
X. The Treaty of Alliance. — Cooper's Account of D'Estaing- 
XI. The American Prisoners. 
XII. Hartley's Desires for Peace. 

XIII. Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-eight. 

XIV. J(»hn Paul Jones. 

XV. Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-nine. 

XVI. The Privateers from Dunkirk. 

XVII. Captain Pierre Landais. 

XVIII. The American Prisoners. 

XIX. Minister Plenipotentiary'. 

XX. The Madrid Correspondence, 1780. 

XXI. The Madrid Correspondence, 1781. 

XXII. The Year of Yorktown. 

PAKT II. 

I. Better Times. 
II. The Financial Position. 

III. The Beginning of the Negotiations. 

IV. The Parties to the Negotiation. 
V. Oswold's Commission. 

VI. Jay takes Charok of Matters. 
VII. The Position of Vergennes. 
'7 III. The Treaty is Settled and Signed. 

IX. The Pkkeiminary Articles. 
X. Other C'orrespondence. 

XI. The End of 1782. 
XII. Other Diplomacy. 

XIII. Science, Literature, Politics, and Art, 1783. 

XIV. Balloons. 
XV. Mesmer. 

XVI. Other Correspondence of 1784. 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 



XVII. New Treaties. — Jefferson axd Fkankum. 
XVIII. Home at Last. — 1785. 
XIX. The Fkench Kevolution. 
XX. Conclusion. 

APPENDIX. 

A. The Stormont Papers. 

B. The Asgill Trial. 

C. Letters to Sir Joseph Banks. 

D. From Miss G. Shipley to Franklin. 



In this important work, Dr. Hale and his son have illustrated 
Franklin's nhie j'ears' residence in France from the original manu- 
script in several large collections, including much valuable material 
which is obtainable in no other work. Several notable questions, 
such as French neutrality, the treatment of j)risoners, privateering, 
and especially questions relating to the treaties with France and 
England, are here considered in the light of all the important facts 
involved, and consequently with more certainty than in any other 
work. 

The steel portraits of Franklin are engraved from a very cliarac- 
teristic portrait ascribed to Van Loo, and a miniature painted in 
France. 

To a student of Fraukliu's career this book is indispensable. . . . Tlie authors 
have followed out their plan with admirable success, and have given us in an enter- 
taining form a new and valuable study of a remarkable man in a remarkable period. 
— Frederick J. Turner, in '■'■ 'The Cliicngo DiiiW'' 

Much light is thrown by this volume upon the relations of France and the French 
people to the Revolution both before and after the alliance, upon the embarrass- 
ments as well as the advantages of their co-operation, and the real amount of obli- 
gation to them for their by no means altruistic action in those days. — Exehnnge. 

It is a conscientious and thorough study of the related events of the period, and 
so a valuable contribution to general history. Of course the authors could not do 
less than make an entertaining narrative, for none know better than they how to 
seize what is picturesque in a life ; but every page bears evidence of careful research 
and wide knowledge of the period. There is no neglect of details which show 
Franklin the man, his private life and his relation to the society of Paris, but public 
events are all the time kept in view, and the reader here will find an illumination 
of our relations with Europe during the Revolutionary War. — Hartford Courant. 

The work is indeed as interesting as it is important. At the same time it is 
readable, fresh, and entert.aining. ... It tells better than any other how stood the 
affairs of our country in regard to France and Great Britain, from the unheralded, 
unexpected, and unwelcome birth of the national Constitution, and what part 
Franklin took in keeping the infant alive and respected. — Boston Beacon. 

Dr. Halo throws new light on the ' remarkable personality of one of the first, if 
not indeed the first of Americans of the last century, and he has made excellent use 
of the new material to which he has had access. It gives a most graphic picture of 
the ante-Revolution French life, both political and social, and presents more fully 
than has been previously done the history of the diplomatic relations between 
France and America in the war for American Independence. The volumes are not 
only intensely interesting, but are a most valuable contribution to American his- 
torical literature. — Boston Traveler. 

A vai-iety of causes enables the authors to present at this time a more correct and 
complete statement of Franklin's mission than has heretofore appeared, and they 
do it in such an entertaining way that while retaining all the reUability of historic 
research they have all the charm of literary biography. ~ Journal of Education. 



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LbM.". 



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